ANNAPOLIS – A proposal to gather data on antibiotic-laced animal feed is likely dead for the year, after both the Maryland Senate and a House panel defeated the measure Wednesday.
The defeats are a victory for the poultry industry, which argued that the measure would force them into divulging trade secrets. Other opponents argued that such a survey would be better done nationally.
The Senate bill failed 30-16. It would have required the secretary of Agriculture to study the type and amount of antibiotics used in raising farm animals. Both the Senate and House measures were similar.
Supporters argued the report would have helped understand whether the use of antibiotics in animal feed is contributing to the creation of drug-resistant bacteria.
The measure’s lead sponsor in the House of Delegates, Baltimore County Democrat Dan K. Morhaim, saw his Environmental Matters Committee reject the bill later that afternoon, 14-7.
It is customary for a chamber to kill a bill that was already defeated in the other chamber.
It took years to convince physicians to stop overprescribing antibiotics to their patients, said Morhaim, an emergency room doctor. Meanwhile, poultry producers are using several grams of antibiotics in their animal feed, witnesses told a House committee, he said.
“This is just merely data gathering,” Morhaim said. “If you eat food, you should be interested in this. Any parent who’s had a child with an ear infection should be interested in this.”
Overuse of antibiotics has been implicated in creating antibiotic- resistant bacteria. Such resistant strains are requiring more exotic drugs to kill them, jeopardizing the public health.
Opponents argued conducting such a study would only further hurt Maryland’s poultry industry, which has already been “hit hard” from past regulations imposed by the state government.
The report would have been “incomplete and, therefore, meaningless,” said Bill Satterfield, a lobbyist for Delmarva Poultry Industry Inc., which has nearly 1,000 members in Maryland. “It does not collect (information about antibiotic) use in humans, horses or pets.”
“The last thing we need is some sort of ridiculous reporting of antibiotics,” said Sen. Richard F. Colburn, R-Dorchester.
The state’s Water Quality Improvement Act of 1998, triggered by the 1997 Pfiesteria outbreak in the Pocomoke River on the lower Eastern Shore, has already cost the poultry industry too much, he said. The act required farmers to draft plans by 2004 to limit chicken waste used as fertilizer and safely dispose of the rest.
The bill was only on its second of three readings in the Senate Wednesday, but enough senators from rural counties and Republicans stood up in opposition to prompt the early vote. Bills usually come up for a vote on third reading.
The bill originally asked for the Maryland Department of Agriculture to present an annual report on both antibiotics and hormones used in animal feed. But to appease some opponents, the Senate Environmental and Economic Affairs Committee eliminated the hormone research from the bill and made the report a one-time study.
Still, the measure barely passed the Environmental and Economic Affairs Committee, 6-5.
Opposition in the full Senate was overwhelming, with Republican Sen. J. Lowell Stoltzfus leading the charge.
“The poultry industry is migrating south,” said Stoltzfus, who represents Somerset, Wicomico and Worcester counties on the lower Eastern Shore. The poultry industry represents 30 to 40 percent of his district’s economy, said Stoltzfus.
The report would have forced poultry producers to reveal trade secrets about animal feed.
“It’s our lives and our families’ lives that are at stake,” said Sen. Paula Colodny Hollinger, D-Baltimore County, the measure’s lead Senate sponsor.
“It would only hurt the poultry industry if the study found (using antibiotics in animal feed) was dangerous,” said Sen. Brian E. Frosh, D- Montgomery. “I think it’s a mistake to turn a blind eye to it.”
But it should be up to the federal government to undertake such a study, opponents said.
“I think the concept is good,” said Sen. Thomas McLain Middleton, D- Charles. “But we’d be using the wrong vehicle.” If it poses a real health threat, he said, “that’s a national issue.”
“I think there are a lot of people who have a lot of faith in the Bush administration,” Frosh said. “I don’t.”