HEALTH - Ricky's Restaurants Switch to Antibiotic & Hormone Free Meat

The Ricky's Group of Family-Style Restaurants announced it will be the first full-service Canadian-owned family restaurant chain to begin serving pork entrées on its breakfast menu that have been raised without any antibiotics or added hormones.

This step has been taken by other restaurants, notably A&W who promote this to consumers who are concerned about what is in what they eat.

Actions limiting antibiotic and hormone use are also in response to the rise in antibiotic resistance around the world.

The World Health Organization considers antimicrobial resistance a global concern.

Their website explains: “Antimicrobial resistance occurs naturally over time, usually through genetic changes. However, the misuse and overuse of antimicrobials is accelerating this process. In many places, antibiotics are overused and misused in people and animals, and often given without professional oversight. Examples of misuse include when they are taken by people with viral infections like colds and flu, and when they are given as growth promoters in animals and fish.”

As reported in InfoStream, the US is implementing the Veterinary Feed Directive to control the use of antibiotics in animals and the Canadian Government is also putting in new regulations for antimicrobial use by veterinarians.

Ricky's Senior Vice President Stacey Hansson said in a release, "We strongly agree with and support the 'don't take unnecessary antibiotics' message, telling the public that we don't need antibiotics every time we are not feeling well. And we definitely don't need them in our food. Antibiotics are for the sick, not the hungry."

The restaurant chain has been working with their pork producers for over a year on this initiative and is now working with its beef and chicken suppliers to make similar changes.

HEALTH - Regulation of Antimicrobial Use by Canadian Veterinarians

A recently closed public consultation held by the Government of Canada is leading the country one step closer to addressing concerns surrounding the problem of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) related to veterinary drugs.

Duane Landals of Veterinarians Without Borders has a lifetime of experience in the profession and is heavily involved with helping to devise a national strategy to address AMR concerns.

In addition to managing a clinical practice, Landals' background includes 15 years as registrar and CEO of the Alberta Veterinary Medical Association, as well as president of both the Alberta and Canadian Veterinary Medical Association and as vice president of the World Veterinary Association for two terms.

“I’m totally involved with the AMR picture…it’s a very visible, global issue,” he said.

“But to address AMR, we have to look at antimicrobial use.”

In dealing with the absence of regulation of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) used in manufactured drugs and the human use of antimicrobials in animals without veterinary oversight, Health Canada initiated the public consultations that would lead to proposed regulatory changes seeking to address the growing problem of AMR in human and veterinary medicine.

The proposed changes, which are welcomed by the veterinary industry as a whole, include:

• requirement that APIs imported or sold in Canada must adhere to Good Manufacturing Practices (currently they do not)
• required licensing for those who import, test, label, fabricate or package APIs
• restriction of own use importation of unauthorized veterinary drugs
• requirement that manufacturers, importers and compounders of veterinary antimicrobials provide sales volume information by species
• and introduction of an alternative, less burdensome pathway for manufacturers to legally import and sell certain low-risk veterinary drugs, known as veterinary health products (VHPs).
  
  

The Canadian Veterinary Medical Association welcomes the changes.

“We have a long history of antimicrobial use in food-producing animals,” said Landals, adding that under the new changes this would be required to be overseen by a veterinarian and would be on an as-needed basis or by prescription – a change that is also in response to public demand for food free from hormones, met with the ‘Raised with Care’ public education campaign.

Every antibiotic will become prescription-only under the new regulation, much like the Veterinary Feed Directive being implemented in the U.S. as of January 2017.

“The culture of how we use antibiotics is changing,” said Landals, making reference to the health and safety of the public. “There should be no surprise.”

Landals said one of the biggest challenges is in the development of a national policy that would lead to provincial policy changes, emphasizing “there is a disconnect” between the national and provincial levels, that working groups are trying to address.

“The biggest thing is that we need consistencies between provinces,” he said, stressing that the United Nations now refers to AMR as a “world global crisis”.

Landals said he does not believe the impact will be felt on companion animal owners.

By Lindsay Seewalt

Lindsay is an experienced journalist and mother of three whose heart and home is always open to a four-legged friend. With her Corgi, Angie, as household editor-in-chief, Lindsay gives back to the animal planet through the written word on anything and all ado about pets. She is passionate about topics regarding animal welfare and responsible pet ownership, which she aims to instill in both her readers and children to be compassionate animal lovers who are conscious and considerate that furry friends around the globe deserve a voice.

HEALTH - Veterinary Feed Directive to Control Antibiotic Use

Farmers in many fields – raising everything from cattle to chickens and even bees – are anxious to see how a new federal feed directive will impact operations.

Set to take effect January 1, 2017, the rules will make it more difficult to get antibiotics for livestock but at the same time offer veterinary supervision to hopefully limit the amount consumed by humans.

“Essentially, the directive is an attempt by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to reduce the amount of antibiotics fed to animals that could potentially end up in the human food supply,” a Utah-based Daily Herald article states.

All producers raising animals for human consumption regardless of operation size must comply.

The rules will also require a relationship to be forged between livestock producers and vets when it comes to acquiring medicated food used to treat animals for illnesses including pneumonia and mastitis (an inflammation of the mammary glands which can lead to infection and see a reduction in milk production) the Herald states.

Many in the industry are scrambling to ensure those affected will be prepared when the rules take effect and not blind-sided when looking to access antibiotics for animals.

The new regulations also mean medicated feed can no longer be used to create weight gain but only for medicinal purposes – disease prevention and control.

Currently, livestock owners can get medicated food directly from a feed store but next year it will no longer be legal for them to sell medicated feed without a written directive from a vet.

Some fear that mandating an order be written by a veterinarian will be cumbersome and cause delays, of several days, in the process of getting medication to an animal.

Growing pains are anticipated.

“Most veterinarians aren’t accustomed to the dosages and feeding rates and feeding lengths of time, so there’s going to be a little bit of struggle with that,” Marty Short, general manager of the North Region Feed Mill told the Daily Herald.

According to the Centers for Disease Control at least two million people in the U.S are infected annually by bacteria resistant to antibiotic treatment and more than 20,000 die from these infections.

The major push behind the directive is “to mandate judicious antibiotic use in livestock to reduce the risk of antibiotic resistant bacteria.”

And there appears to be an appetite among would-be consumers to make meat antibiotic free.

A & W, for instance, heavily advertises the fact they no longer have antibiotics (nor hormones or preservatives) in their beef.

While the amount and type of hormones used in meat is closely regulated by Health Canada and the U.S Food and Drug Administration, the issue of antibiotics in farm animals' food supply has been one leading to warnings from health officials both sides of the border.

Canadian officials and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control caution the “growing use of antibiotics in farm animals' food supply is worsening the problem of antimicrobial resistance – the phenomenon of bacteria becoming immune to antibiotics,” a Huffington Post article stated.

Short says, ideally the directive will shed a positive light on the industry in the eyes of consumers.

“The whole process can be a positive for us in improving consumer perception,” he told the Daily Herald.

“Even though most of us feel these things have been judiciously used in most cases, consumers do see a need for it and we need to respond to consumer concerns and we need to take this seriously and do the best we can to comply with these rules.”

Of course, there are glitches yet to be worked out as the directive is rolled out.

Utah beekeepers, for instance, could see operations complicated given most veterinarians – required to write the directives – do not prescribe to bees, David Wilson, a dairy extension veterinarian at Utah State University told the Daily Herald.

“In order to get the antibiotic-medicated cakes, somebody's going to have to become the bee vet,” he said.

Many argue that large-scale meat production relies on antibiotics to keep animals healthy and, according to a CBS report, some studies suggest the risk to humans consuming animals who have been treated with antibiotics is extremely low.

Others contend the “overuse of antibiotics in humans – not animals – (is) causing a rise in drug-resistant bacteria,” and a 2004 study showed “the likelihood that antibiotic would not work in a human due to animal use at 1 in 82 million.”

“The problem is not an animal or human issue per se,” Dr. Tom Chiller with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told CBS.

“It's about using the antibiotics as judiciously as we possibly can in situations where they are needed.”

By Nadia Moharib

Nadia is an animal lover who has adopted everything from birds to hamsters, salamanders, rabbits, fish and felines. She has written about all-things-pets for years and was a long-time editor of a pet magazine in a daily newspaper which featured a Q & A column, Ask Whit, penned by her pooch (ghost written, of course.) The serial dog owner lives in Calgary, Alberta and most days can be found at a dog park picking up after her rescue pooch, Scoots.

HEALTH - New Molecule Renews Antibiotic Effectiveness

The spectre of drug-resistant infections is a serious concern.

Scientists at Merck, including Terry Roemer, have found a molecule that can once again make antibiotics effective against some drug-resistant infections.

This is great news, because resistant infections are on the rise. Among both people and pets, antibiotic resistance is a growing problem.

But while antibiotic resistance is growing in a variety of bacteria, from UTIs to STIs, it was antibiotic-resistant Staph infections that Roemer and his team focused on.

MRSA, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, and MRSE, methicillin-resistant S. epidermidis, are an issue in schools, hospitals, prisons, and anywhere else that people may come into contact with open wounds.

Although the resistant form of the infection is not more virulent, it is much harder to treat. These bacteria have evolved enzymes capable of withstanding the attacks of ß-lactam antibiotics.

ß-lactam antibiotics, including penicillin, methicillin, and the cephalosporins, are among the most commonly prescribed and were the first to be discovered. In fact, it is the prevalence of their use that has resulted in growing antibiotic resistance.

According to a study last year, “The persistent exposure of bacterial strains to a multitude of β-lactams has induced dynamic and continuous production and mutation of β-lactamases in these bacteria.”

These β-lactamases are the enzymes that provide drug resistance.

The fact that MRSA and MRSE have become such an issue in hospitals, schools, and prisons is somewhat ironic.

When Fleming first discovered penicillin, it was while studying Staphylococcus colonies. It was the Staph bacterium that opened the door to the antibiotic era, and the Staph bacterium seems determined to close that same door.

Thankfully researchers are working hard to prevent that, and the development of tarocins – the molecules which, when combined with ß-lactam antibiotics, inhibit the enzymes protecting the bacteria – is a step towards once again having reliable and effective treatments for Staph infections.

The development of tarocin A took an unusual path.

Rather than trying to develop a new drug that would be effective on its own, the team focused exclusively on developing a nonbioactive molecule. This sped up the process of clinical trials and cleared the regulatory path.

Tarocin A becomes active only when combined with existing ß-lactam antibiotics, and once it is combined it showed a restored susceptibility of 82% of MRSA samples and 77% of MRSE samples.

Trials in mice show that treatment with the combined ß-lactam and tarocin A had no adverse effects, and significantly increased effectivity. Treatment with only one or the other did not clear the infection.

Although the rates of hospital-acquired MRSA infections have been falling, it is difficult to determine how many people are affected by drug-resistant infections.

Deaths caused by drug-resistant infections are often not properly documented, due to a combination of lack of experience and the stigma associated with hospital-acquired infections. When these infections become treatable again, hospital patients will be safer.

(cdc.gov)

By Tiffany Sostar

Tiffany is a writer, editor, academic, and animal lover who came late to her appreciation of pets. At 18, a rescue pup named Tasha saved her from a depression and she hasn't looked back. She has worked as the canine behaviour program coordinator for the Calgary Humane Society, and was a dog trainer specializing in working with fearful and reactive dogs for many years. She doesn't have any pets right now, but makes up for it by giving her petsitting clients (and any dogs she comes across on her frequent coffee shop adventures) extra snuggles.