More on Resolution Against Use of Antibiotics in Agriculture

After last night's Georgetown City Council meeting,  it appears the Council is prepared to issue a resolution supporting the ban on non-therapeutic uses of antibiotics in agriculture.  It seems that passing such a resolution requires a large dose of hubris on the part of the Council in that they are the representatives of Georgetown and there is no known data that indicates a majority of Georgetown citizens would support such a resolution.

The Council is venturing far outside its area of responsibility and expertise in passing this resolution.  This is an area of science that is very unsettled at this time.  Even when an area of medical science is considered settled by a majority of scientists and citizens, we find out later that the settled science was wrong.  It was not long ago that fat in the diet was considered detrimental to human health.  Salt was considered as contributing to high blood pressure.  Eating eggs was considered to be bad for our heart for decades.  All of these so-called facts are now considered to be erroneous by many scientists today.  They are no longer universally accepted as fact.

The latest controversy revolves around the use of statins to reduce blood pressure.

          "Dr Kailash Chand, deputy chairman of the British Medical Association, was speaking recently     about research which found those who take the cholesterol-lowering drugs are more than twice as likely to develop Parkinson’s disease in later life than those who do not.   A study last week showed statin use increases the risk of diabetes by 46 per cent.  This has led to calls to end to the widespread use of the (statin) drugs".  http://www.express.co.uk/

The point of these examples is not to comment on the efficacy of these drugs or changes in life style, but, to point out that we as a society do not know all the information at a given time and often times our knowledge changes over time.  Surely no one would undertake a regime of statins to marginally reduce their blood pressure if it were known that their risk for Parkinson's disease would double and their risk for diabetes would increase by approximately 50%.

Our City Council is certainly not in a position to have definitive information that will allow them to "take sides" on a highly contentious and unsettled area of science.  Furthermore, they don't know how the citizens of Georgetown feel about this issue and there are likely unknown consequences of supporting a ban on non-therapeutic uses of antibiotics in agriculture.

The prudent course for the Council is to stay out of supporting these kinds of resolutions and focus on city governance.