Public health advocates and farm worker organisations have filed a major legal petition urging the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to stop allowing farms in the United States to spray medically important antibiotics on food crops, warning that the practice is accelerating the rise of dangerous superbugs and putting agricultural workers at risk.
The petition, submitted by a coalition of 12 groups, argues that the widespread agricultural use of antibiotics and antifungal chemicals poses severe public health hazards.
An estimated 8 million pounds of these substances are sprayed annually on American crops, including some pesticides banned in other countries.
Campaigners say the routine use of antibiotics, normally reserved for treating human disease, on fruits and vegetables threatens to undermine modern medicine.
Overuse can fuel the emergence of bacteria that no longer respond to available treatments, while excessive antifungal pesticides can lead to infections that are harder to treat with current drugs.
Nathan Donley, environmental health science director at the Centre for Biological Diversity, said the risks have been known for years.
“Each year Americans are at greater risk from dangerous bacteria and diseases because human medicines are sprayed on crops,” he said.
“This kind of recklessness and preventable suffering is what happens when the industry has a stranglehold on the EPA’s pesticide-approval process.”
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that antibiotic-resistant infections sicken around 2.8 million people and kill about 35,000 every year.
The agency has also linked medically important antibiotics approved by the EPA for agricultural use to increased risks of staph infections and MRSA.
Documents obtained by the Center for Biological Diversity through a Freedom of Information Act request show that the CDC raised concerns as early as 2017 about the expansion of antibiotic use on citrus crops.
The agency warned that using antibiotics as pesticides “has the potential to select for antimicrobial-resistant bacteria present in the environment.”
Health risks extend beyond farm fields. Residues on food may alter the human gut microbiome and increase the risk of chronic illness.
Antibiotic runoff can also pollute drinking water sources and harm pollinators. Farm workers, particularly low-income and Latino labourers, are often the most exposed.
Farms typically spray antibiotics to combat bacterial diseases that threaten crop yields. One of the most frequently used products is streptomycin, a drug commonly relied upon in medical care.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, as much as 125,000 pounds have been applied to American crops in a single year.
The latest petition comes as the EPA faces pressure to expand antibiotic use to combat citrus greening disease, which is devastating orchards in Florida.
Donley acknowledged the severity of the crisis but warned that increasing antibiotic use would only worsen long-term health and environmental risks.
“I understand their desperation because they’re in dire straits, but from a societal point of view, this is absolutely a no-brainer; it cannot happen,” he said.
“The bottom line is the massive problems created by spraying human medicine on food crops far outweigh the agricultural problems.”
He added that simpler crop management solutions, such as wider crop spacing, breeding disease-resistant varieties, and quickly removing infected trees, should be prioritised before turning to antibiotics.
The petition gives the EPA roughly five years to respond. The agency may enact a ban or must explain why it will not.
Source: The Guardian News
Image Credit: Beyond Pesticides
