US lawmakers are urging the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to rethink its position on the use of two medically important antibiotics to treat a disease affecting citrus production.
In a letter to EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler, JD, MBA, yesterday, Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) said the EPA’s proposals to significantly expand the application of oxytetracycline and streptomycin on citrus trees to prevent citrus greening disease—a bacterial infection—will exacerbate the problem of antimicrobial resistance.
The two requested that the agency not authorize expanded use of the antibiotics until it can be determined that such use will not harm human health.
The letter, which was signed by five other lawmakers, also argues that the EPA has ignored other federal agencies and scientific evidence in its decision-making process.
The EPA approved emergency use of the antibiotics on citrus trees in Florida in 2016 to combat the disease, then said it would allow expanded use of oxytetracycline on roughly 700,000 acres of citrus farms in Florida and California in December 2018. The agency is currently reviewing the request for expanded use of streptomycin.
“Antibiotics are life-saving medicines and, except in extraordinary circumstances, should only be used to treat specific illnesses in people and animals,” the lawmakers wrote. “EPA’s assessments appear to ignore scientific evidence, violate the principle of judicious antibiotic use, and could create unnecessary harm to human health by authorizing an unprecedented amount of medically important antibiotics to be used for plant agriculture.”
Questions about human health impact
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