Antibiotics are one of the most important medical advances of the 20th Century--"wonder drugs" that vanquished many diseases that used to be deadly. But bacteria exposed to antibiotics eventually become resistant, forcing modern medicine into a constant race to stay ahead.
In recent years, the germs have been closing the gap. Many types of bacteria are resistant to one antibiotic or another, and one salmonella strain is resistant to seven. A real danger exists that diseases formerly under control may gain a lethal upper hand.
That threat is behind the Food and Drug Administration's recent decision to revise its guidelines to limit the use of these drugs in farm animals, which currently accounts for 40 percent of all antibiotic consumption.
Most of the antibiotics employed in agriculture are used to promote animal growth, not to cure disease. Consumers and farmers benefit in the short run, but the more widespread and indiscriminate the applications of antibiotics, the more likely and the sooner they will lose their effectiveness against disease.
Soon after new antibiotics known as fluoroquinolones were given to animals in the Netherlands, bacteria turned up that were resistant to them.
Some experts think the agency should not allow antibiotics used to treat humans to be given to animals for growth promotion. The World Health Organization has also endorsed that policy, which has been adopted by the European Union.
But the FDA, with an appropriate concern for the impact on food production, has taken a more deliberate approach. It proposes to require the testing of drugs used by people, or related to drugs used by people, to determine the risk that agricultural use will erode their potency in combating disease. Those with a tendency to produce bacterial resistance could be withdrawn from farm applications.
Reducing such uses is only one of the measures that could be taken to assure the effectiveness of these vital medicines. Doctors need to exercise more restraint in prescribing drugs for minor ailments that may not even be bacterial in nature.
Pharmaceutical companies need to be given incentives to develop new drugs powerful enough to conquer the hardiest microbes. Scrutinizing the use of antibiotics in food production is not enough to solve the problem, but it's an important step.