Washington, D.C. -- Legislation that would require the state of California to collect key information on the use of antibiotics in animal agriculture cleared the California State Senate today. Keep Antibiotics Working: The Coalition to End Antibiotic Overuse (KAW) applauded Senator Byron D. Sher (D) for sponsoring the bill, which KAW says would help health officials address the growing public health crisis of antibiotic resistance.

The first-in-the-nation bill requires wholesalers and manufacturers to report to the state's Board of Pharmacy all sales of prescription antibiotics for use in agriculture, and to report sales of over-the-counter antibiotics and antibiotic feed additives to the California Department of Food and Agriculture.

"More and more people are suffering from infections resistant to antibiotics," said Tamar Barlam, MD, director of Center for Science in the Public Interest 's Antibiotic Resistance Project. "Misuse and overuse of antibiotics by doctors and by farmers are the major contributors to this problem. Senator Sher's legislation would help health authorities figure out how to control antibiotic use, and how to stop the spread of antibiotic-resistant infections in people."

Currently, there are no publicly available data on antibiotic use in farm animals. The Union of Concerned Scientists estimates that more than four times the amount of medically important antibiotics are fed to farm animals as are used to treat sick people. Antibiotics are routinely fed to farm animals in order to promote slightly faster growth and to compensate for crowded, stressful conditions at industrial-scale farms. Such use causes antibiotic-resistant bacteria that can make people sick with harder-to-treat infections.

"The manufacturers know their antibiotics sales information," said Barlam. "It's time they made that information available to the public and health officials so we can develop strategies to combat antibiotic resistance."

Keep Antibiotics Working: The Campaign to End Antibiotics Overuse, is a coalition of health, consumer, agricultural, environmental and other advocacy groups, with over 9 million members, dedicated to eliminating an important cause of antibiotic resistance—the inappropriate use of antibiotics in farm animals. For more information, visit www.KeepAntibioticsWorking.com.

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