The Push to Regulate Animal Antibiotics (With Footage From a House Hearing)

Call it a victory in the making for food safety advocates. Last Wednesday, the House Committee on Energy and Commerce held a hearing on "Antibiotic Resistance and the Use of Antibiotics in Animal Agriculture," and if all goes according to plan it could mark the beginning of the end for the low-level doses of antibiotics that are helping especially virulent pathogens enter our food supply.

In June, the FDA issued draft guidance recommending that animals not be given antibiotics to promote growth—an application that is far more common than their use in curing animal diseases. During the hearing, however, Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA) stressed that "we must do more": craft science-based policy to address the "rising public health emergency" of antibiotic resistance.

Here's a video from CBS about the threat of resistant bacteria and the growing efforts to address it, with footage from the hearing: