Antibiotic Resistance Threatens Public Health

Doctors depend on antibiotics to treat illnesses caused by bacteria, from pneumonia to meningitis and other life-threatening infections. The effectiveness of many antibiotics has begun to wane, the legacy of decades of unnecessary overuse in both human medicine and agriculture.

Keep Antibiotics Working is a coalition of health, consumer, agricultural, environmental, humane and other advocacy groups with more than ten million members dedicated to eliminating a major cause of antibiotic resistance: the inappropriate use of antibiotics in food animals. For a general overview of the issue, see the Campaign's fact sheets: Antibiotic Resistance - An Emerging Public Health Crisis (an annotated version is also available) and Antibiotic Resistance and Animal Agriculture.

PBS story on antibiotic resistance

Click here or on the image above to view this Quicktime video.

Share Your Experience

If you or a family member has been ill with an antibiotic-resistant bacterial infection, please fill out the KAW Share Your Experience form. Your information will be completely confidential.

ACT NOW

Urge Congress to pass legislation that will keep antibiotics working. ACT NOW!

* December 29, 2008

Listen to NPR's coverage of the FDA's reversal of the cephalosporin ban.

* December 8, 2008

The FDA has failed to protect public health yet again, this time by rescinding its own ban on the extralabel use of cephalosporins in food animals. Read KAW's press release , as well as the notice in the Federal Register for more information.

* November 6, 2008

Read Michael Pollan's open letter to the next President, or "Farmer in Chief." He calls for FDA to ban the routine use of antibiotics in livestock feed.

* October 30, 2008

Read KAW's comments on FDA's proposed ban on the extralabel use of cephalosporins in food animals.

* October 27, 2008

Read the latest on antibiotic resistance from CSPI's October 2008 Nutrition Action Healthletter.

* September 22, 2008

The Pew Campaign on Human Health and Industrial Farming has launched its new website. Learn about their efforts to safeguard antibiotics for future generations!

* July 3, 2008

FDA bans the extralabel use of cephalosporins, an important class of antibiotics in human medicine, in food animals. Read our press statement.

* June 4, 2008

MRSA now found in U.S. pigs and farmers. Read about this alarming development here.

* April 30, 2008

Independent Pew Commission report recommends ban on the nontherapeutic use of antibiotics in farm animals. Read the latest news here.