1.1                             A resolution
  1.2             memorializing the United States Congress and the 
  1.3             Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration of 
  1.4             the United States to take steps to protect the health 
  1.5             of the people of the United States, and to maintain 
  1.6             the effectiveness of human antibiotics by limiting 
  1.7             their use as routine additives to animal feeds and 
  1.8             water, and memorializing leadership in the other 
  1.9             states to join in this effort. 
  1.10     
  1.11     WHEREAS, antibiotics are the chief and often only curative 
  1.12  therapy for people sick with bacterial infections; and 
  1.13     WHEREAS, infections with antibiotic-resistant bacteria are 
  1.14  more difficult or impossible to treat, prolonging or causing 
  1.15  worse illness or even death, while resistance also increases the 
  1.16  rate at which such bacteria are transmitted to humans; and 
  1.17     WHEREAS, the World Health Organization, the American Public 
  1.18  Health Association, the Institute of Medicine of the National 
  1.19  Academy of Sciences, the Centers for Disease Control and 
  1.20  Prevention (CDC), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and 
  1.21  other medical and public health authorities acknowledge that 
  1.22  disease-causing bacteria resistant to antibiotics constitute an 
  1.23  increasingly grave public health crisis; and 
  1.24     WHEREAS, antibiotic-resistant bacteria cost American 
  1.25  individuals and society at least four to five billion dollars 
  1.26  annually; and 
  1.27     WHEREAS, the use and misuse of antibiotics has been shown 
  2.1   to promote the spread of resistant bacteria; and 
  2.2      WHEREAS, the best publicly available estimates are that 
  2.3   agricultural use of antibiotics consumes approximately ten times 
  2.4   more antibiotics by volume than does the treatment of sick 
  2.5   people; and 
  2.6      WHEREAS, an estimated 93 percent (24.5 million pounds) of 
  2.7   antibiotics used in agriculture each year are used not to treat 
  2.8   sick animals but rather are given without prescription or 
  2.9   veterinary supervision for nontherapeutic reasons; and 
  2.10     WHEREAS, the majority of antibiotics used in raising 
  2.11  cattle, swine, and poultry, by these same estimates, are 
  2.12  identical or nearly identical to the antibiotics relied upon by 
  2.13  health care providers to treat sick people; and 
  2.14     WHEREAS, the CDC, the FDA, and other scientists have 
  2.15  demonstrated that widespread agricultural use of important human 
  2.16  antibiotics propagates bacterial resistance, and that these 
  2.17  resistant bacteria are transmitted through the food supply to 
  2.18  humans, where they are causing an increasing number of illnesses 
  2.19  resistant to treatment with antibiotics; and 
  2.20     WHEREAS, resistant bacteria from livestock facilities may 
  2.21  migrate into groundwater and surface water where they can be 
  2.22  further spread by wildlife and pets and can come into direct 
  2.23  contact with humans; and 
  2.24     WHEREAS, bacteria that have become resistant are able to 
  2.25  transfer their resistance genes to unrelated bacteria of other 
  2.26  species, magnifying the resistance problem; and 
  2.27     WHEREAS, the effectiveness of antibiotics used in treating 
  2.28  both sick humans and sick animals is being compromised; and 
  2.29     WHEREAS, the risk for contracting an antibiotic-resistant 
  2.30  infection is highest for children, the elderly, hospital 
  2.31  patients, transplant recipients, people undergoing chemotherapy, 
  2.32  people who are HIV positive, and others whose immune systems may 
  2.33  be depressed; and 
  2.34     WHEREAS, all the countries of the European Union have 
  2.35  already restricted many medically important antibiotics from use 
  2.36  in agriculture as growth promoters or for other uses in animals 
  3.1   that are not ill, and have continued to raise food animals 
  3.2   successfully and cost-effectively; and 
  3.3      WHEREAS, any delay in taking steps to reduce agricultural 
  3.4   antibiotic use in the United States will only heighten the 
  3.5   public health risk since continued use promotes further 
  3.6   development of resistance; NOW, THEREFORE, 
  3.7      BE IT RESOLVED by the Legislature of the State of Minnesota 
  3.8   that it strongly urges the United States Congress and the United 
  3.9   States Food and Drug Administration to immediately take steps 
  3.10  to:  (1) limit agricultural use of antibiotics to that 
  3.11  authorized under veterinary prescription and supervision; and 
  3.12  (2) eliminate the use in aquaculture and agriculture of 
  3.13  medically important antibiotics at levels other than those used 
  3.14  for therapeutic reasons. 
  3.15     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Legislature of the State of 
  3.16  Minnesota strongly urges the governors and legislatures in other 
  3.17  states to promulgate this message. 
  3.18     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Secretary of State of the 
  3.19  State of Minnesota is directed to prepare copies of this 
  3.20  memorial and transmit them to the President of the United States 
  3.21  and the Secretary of the United States Senate, the Speaker and 
  3.22  the Clerk of the United States House of Representatives, and the 
  3.23  governors and legislative presiding officers of each of the 
  3.24  other states of the Union.