Governor Brown Calls for Real Antibiotic Stewardship with Veto of SB 835
SACRAMENTO (September 30, 2014) – Jonathan Kaplan, director of the Food and Agriculture program at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), issued the following statement today after Governor Brown last night vetoed SB 835, authored by Senator Jerry Hill, which would have replicated flawed federal guidelines aimed at reducing certain uses of antibiotics for raising livestock in California.
“In vetoing this bill, the Governor has called for stronger action to curb unnecessary antibiotic use in California,” said Kaplan.
“We face a rapidly accelerating public health crisis due to antibiotic resistance. Clearly, the Governor is not going to accept good intentions and fig leaf solutions to tackle this problem. Instead, we need to lift the curtain of secrecy that now shrouds the industry’s use of these drugs and eliminate unnecessary antibiotic use so that these precious medicines keep working for people who need them.”
NRDC and numerous other public interest groups have strongly opposed the measure and urged the Governor to veto the bill because it does not make meaningful progress beyond the FDA’s voluntary Guidance 213. Both SB 835 and the federal guidance would require pharmaceutical companies to eliminate the use of antibiotics for “growth promotion,” but allow many of the same drugs to be used routinely under other label categories.
For additional information, see these related links:
- Governor Brown’s SB 835 veto message: http://gov.ca.gov/docs/SB_835_Veto_Message.pdf
- NRDC and other public interest group’s original veto request here: http://docs.nrdc.org/legislation/files/leg_14092501a.pdf
- Jonathan Kaplan, NRDC’s food & agriculture director, blogs more about the flaws of SB 835 here
- For more on the human health threats to overuse of antibiotics in livestock: http://www.nrdc.org/food/saving-antibiotics.asp