News & Media :: Daily Log
Leadership in Action
Apr 18, 2010
The American Public Health Association (APHA) has issued a "Policy Statement" opposing the use of hormone growth promoters and production enhancers in beef and dairy production.
Tn justifying the new "Policy Statement," APHA highlights the linkages between hormone-based performance enhancing animal drugs, stress on animals, infectious disease risks triggering subtherapeutic antibiotic use, and antibiotic resistance.
In the words of the APHA --
"There is now concensus among scientists that antibiotic use in farm animals increases antibiotic resistance, which can then be transmitted back to humans through food or in the environment. Reducing rbGH use would serve to reduce antibiotic use in dairy cattle."
On the topic of steroid hormone implants in beef cattle production, the APHA states that --
"Three natural steroid hormones (estradiol, testosterone, and progesterone), and three synthetic surrogates (zeranol, melengestrol, trenbolone) remain in widespread use by US and Canadian beef cattle producers to boost growth and production; concurrent use of more than one steroid is approved. Trenbolone, is thought to have 8 to 10 times greater anabolic activity than testosterone.
It is widely acknowledged that the use of these hormone growth promoters results in residues in meat. Residues of these hormone growth promoters also persist for weeks to months in manure and feedlot runoff, raising concerns about the added exogenous hormone load to the environment."
APHA deserves this recognition because over the last three decades, most scientific and professional groups have failed to speak clearly and decisively on these topics, deferring for the most part to the interests of the animal drug industry, while calling for more research before action is taken.
