Jeriah Privett

AGR 499

Representative Practical – Committee Report

 The reason we gathered on March 3rd and 5th was to discuss an amendment to H.R. 1587,

the amendment consisted of removing the wording “nonroutine disease control” on page 13, line

14. The removal of that phrase would as include the removal of SEC. 512A, which starts at line

21 on page 14-page 16. The phrase “nonroutine disease control” allows producers to use feed

grade antibiotics in order to prevent or reduce transmission of disease. There were several good

arguments in favor of and against the legislation. However, I, Representative Practical as well as

four of the committee members voted against the legislation, while one committee member voted

for the legislation, ultimately not passing at this level.

Now, I would like to give you some background on myself just to shed some light onto

the reason I voted the way I did. As you already know I am a democrat from the great state of

Missouri, in my specific district we are very diverse. We have several large cattle operations as

well as new developing areas in our city. My constituency was nearly divided on the matter, half

wanted me to vote against the legislation because they believed it would ultimately hurt our

small-town farmers in the end. The other half of my district believed that I need to vote for the

legislation in order to be leaders in stopping antibiotic resistance. Going into this hearing I knew

that if I voted against the legislation there would be a chance I wouldn’t be reelected, therefore

where the facts led me is the way that I would choose to vote.

In our first session, there were several statements that stood out to me. The first of these,

Dr. Mike Apley, who stated that the passing of this bill “in return would hurt our small farmers,

their livelihood, and the ability to keep the animals safe and healthy.” This quote hit home for me

because of the all the small farmers in my district that would be negatively affected. The next

speech was given by Dr. Gail Hansen who was in favor of the legislation, she said “As with

human medicine, there will likely be continued over-prescription of antibiotics by veterinarians

without further requirements.” So, if she believes that human medicine is over-prescribed then

couldn’t that be what is causing antibiotic resistance in humans? This made me question whether

or not the antibiotics that are used in animals are even what is causing antibiotic resistance in

humans. The next statement that caught my attention was spoken by Ms. FDA, “There are

numerous policies and programs that the FDA puts in place the ensure that all animal-based food

products, among others, are safe.” She went on to explain that all animal products are heavily

tested to make sure there are no traces of antibiotics in any products. If this is the case then there

wouldn’t be any chance for these animal products to play a role in human antibiotic resistance.

These are the three main points that led me to voting against the legislation after the first session.

Then the second and final session, the first speech was given by lobbyist Mrs. Science

PhD, her speech was very factual and set the tone for the session that the opposing side just

could not rebound from in my opinion. Mrs. Science said, “The only way for antibiotics to create

resistance is by misuse or overuse.” This brought me back to a point made in the first session that

antibiotics for human use are over-prescribed. Secondly, these antibiotics cost farmers money,

they would not want to use them unless necessary, and they would want to use them directly as

they are instructed to keep from having to spend more money if they are misused to treat the

original problem. Next, Jane Public stated, “Think of it like this; the healthier the animal the

safer for us, there’s a direct link between animal and human health.” She is someone who has a

family that consumes these products and has never seen antibiotic resistance from it. This is a

situation that I have myself to be in as well.

With that being said, there was no reason for me to vote for the proposed legislation,

when all the facts pointed to antibiotic resistance coming from misuse in human medicine not the

use of antibiotics in animal used for consumer products. My vote is to support the
nontherapeutic use of antibiotics and keep the small-scale farmers in my district able to better

run their operations.