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Last week was recognized in the U.S. as “Get Smart About Antibiotics Week,” and two coalitions came forward with statements about the growing problem of antimicrobial resistance. While they delivered the same message — protecting antibiotics is a shared responsibility — they were notably different in tone. First was an announcement that the U.S. Centers



Aflatoxin corn allowed in U.S. livestock feed

Aflatoxin contamination prompted a series of U.S. 
pet food and livestock feed recalls last December

Reuters / The U.S. Food and Drug Administration will allow grain handlers in Iowa and Illinois to blend corn containing aflatoxin, a naturally occurring toxic substance, with other grain to make animal feed. Aflatoxin is the byproduct of a corn mold that tends to spread in drought years. Following the worst drought in the Corn

Iowa testing milk for aflatoxin

chicago / reuters / Iowa, the No. 1 corn producer in the United States, began requiring the state’s dairy processors to test all milk received in the state for aflatoxin Aug. 31, the toxic byproduct of a mould that tends to spread in drought-stressed corn. The Iowa Department of Agriculture said the required aflatoxin screening


Can’t live with them, or without them

A U.S. animal rights group hopes to save a herd of genetically modified pigs from early deaths after funding dried up for a Canadian research project that has stoked controversy about altering animal genes to produce food. Possible euthanization of the nine so-called Enviropigs, descendants of swine first bred 13 years ago by the University

U.S. livestock antibiotic move under scrutiny in Canada

Amove by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to clamp down on the use of human antibiotics in veterinary drugs is being closely watched in Canada, but no immediate action is being planned. The final shape of the FDA’s plan has yet to be determined but it’s aimed at eliminating so-called non-therapeutic antibiotic use within


Death knell may sound for Canada’s GMO pigs

Without fresh funding, the animals will be euthanized 
and their genetic material put into cold storage

Pigs that might have become the world’s first genetically modified animals approved for human consumption may instead face an untimely end, as key backers of Canada’s “Enviropig” project withdrew their support for the controversial engineered animal. Scientists at the University of Guelph, 90 km west of Toronto, bred the first GMO pig that was developed

Judge orders FDA to remove antibiotics from feed

Reuters / A federal judge ordered U.S. regulators March 22 to start proceedings to withdraw approval for the use of common antibiotics in animal feed, citing concerns that overuse is endangering human health by creating antibiotic-resistant “superbugs.” U.S. Magistrate Judge Theodore Katz ordered the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to begin proceedings unless makers of


GMO proliferation an existential threat to organic farmers

Sourcing organic alfalfa seed has become more complicated since the commercial release of genetically modified alfalfa in the U.S., the executive director of the Canadian Organic Trade Association says. Although it is not yet grown commercially in Canada, the herbicide-tolerant forage crop was given a green light by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency in 2005

No to more fungicide in orange juice: FDA

Reuters / The U.S. Food and Drug Administration declined to change the levels it will accept of an illegal fungicide commonly used in the Brazilian orange juice industry, the agency said Feb. 16. The Brazilian and U.S. juice industry groups had asked the FDA to allow higher levels of the fungicide, carbendazim, until June 2013