“‘Raised Without Antibiotics’ [RWA] and related claims are absolute, meaning antibiotics should never have been administered to the animals intended for the RWA market,” says Laura Rogers, the deputy director of the Antibiotic Resistance Action Center at the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University in Washington, DC, and a coauthor of the study, published April 7 in Science. “This is disappointing to say the least. This is an important label claim, and consumers should have confidence in it,” she says.
Overuse of Antibiotics Is a Threat to Global Health
The routine use of antibiotics in healthy animals is a health concern; overuse and misuse of antibiotics in animals is contributing to antibiotic resistance, which the World Health Organization (WHO) considers one of the biggest threats to global health and food security. More than 2.8 million antibiotic-resistant infections occur in the United States each year, which results in more than 35,000 deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The CDC supports “judicious use of antibiotics in people and animals, including the important work that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) are doing to improve antibiotic use in veterinary medicine and agriculture.” Part of that effort is to require documentation from food producers in order for agencies to approve labels such as “No Antibiotics Ever (NAE)” or “Raised Without Antibiotics,” both of which mean that the source animal never received antibiotics, according to the agency.
Findings Suggest That RWA Labels Lack Integrity
To test the accuracy of the labels, researchers obtained urine samples from 699 beef cattle from 312 lots and 33 different Raised Without Antibiotics–certified feed yards intended for the Raised Without Antibiotics marketplace. Investigators found that 42 percent of feed yards had at least one animal test positive, and lots with at least one positive test represented approximately 15 percent of the Raised Without Antibiotics cattle processed during the study period. While several of the feed yards met the standard all or most of the time, in three of the feed yards all the cattle tested positive for antibiotics. The findings suggest that the Raised Without Antibiotics label lacks integrity, according to the authors. “People ask me all the time what they can do to prevent the overuse of antibiotics in meat production. For years, I’ve been telling them to buy products labeled Raised Without Antibiotics,” said a coauthor, Lance B. Price, PhD, a professor of environmental and occupational health at George Washington Public Health, in a press release. “I’m disappointed to see that these promises aren’t always true." “The good news is that while we found 15 percent of the cattle positive, we also found 85 percent were not,” says Rogers. “This means that the majority of producers are following the rules, but we need to get that number from 85 to 100 percent,” she says.
Label Reform Is Needed to Ensure Claims Are Truthful
According to the authors, there are strong incentives for meat producers to skirt regulations that would be relatively easy for the USDA to enforce. “The USDA should establish a rigorous verification system to ensure that RWA claims are truthful and accurate, or they should cease approving these labels,” they wrote. They offer the following suggestions on how the USDA could ensure that the meat is accurately labeled.
The USDA should conduct or require continuous on-site empirical testing for antibiotics on a meaningful number of animals from every lot delivered for processing.The agency should use sensitive, real-time technologies that identify animals that have been treated with antibiotics rather than rely on the less-accurate maximum residue limits of antibiotics that are obtained after the animal has been slaughtered.Lots that test positive for antibiotics should be rerouted and sold on the conventional market.Positive lots should be tracked and published on a public ledger, and repeat offenders should be excluded from supplying animals for RWA programs until they can demonstrate that they have taken meaningful steps to eliminate undisclosed antibiotic use.
“We hope consumers will use their powerful voices and call for reforming the labels,” says Rogers.
Tips on Buying Meat Raised Without Antibiotics
Other labels besides RWA provide assurance that the meat you purchase was raised with antibiotics. Consumer Reports offers the following tips. Choose products with a “Certified Organic” label. Meat with this seal must be raised without antibiotics, and the farms and processing facilities are inspected at least once a year. Buy products with a “Process Verified” label. Although this label is currently much more common on poultry than beef, food producers who seek this certification agree to both administrative audits and on-site inspections.
