Category: Issue 417
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Skeptical High Court Could Doom California Downer Livestock Law
Following oral argument before the U.S. Supreme Court on the validity of a California law that prohibits slaughterhouses from receiving, processing or selling nonambulatory animals, court watchers are predicting that the law will not survive the National Meat Association’s preemption challenge. Nat’l Meat Ass’n v. Harris, No. 10-224 (U.S., argued November 9, 2011). The Ninth…
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European Parliament Adopts Tighter Controls of Antibiotic Use in Livestock Farming
The European Parliament recently adopted a resolution calling for a ban on most uses of antibiotics in livestock. Noting that “superbugs” take the lives of approximately 25,000 people in Europe each year, the non-binding resolution urges the European Commission (EC) to “make legislative proposals to phase out the prophylactic use of antibiotics in livestock farming.”…
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California Agency Changes Animal Cancer Conversion Calculation
The California Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) has issued a notice addressing its amendment to “the calculation used to convert estimates of animal cancer potencyto estimates of human cancer potency, which is used to calculate no significant risk levels for carcinogens listed under Proposition 65.” According to the notice, the amendment…
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FDA Denies Requests to Prohibit Use of Certain Antibiotics in Food Animals
After a coalition of advocacy organizations filed a lawsuit against the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) seeking an order compelling the agency to rule on 1999 and 2005 petitions that asked the agency to withdraw approval of certain antimicrobial drugs in food animal production, the agency finally acted. Information about the lawsuit appears in Issue…