Thank you.
Mr. Stanton.
Evidence of meeting #54 for Health in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was used.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #54 for Health in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was used.
A recording is available from Parliament.
March 8th, 2011 / 5:15 p.m.
Conservative
Bruce Stanton Conservative Simcoe North, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Great topic today, and thank you for your presentations.
I don't pretend to be an expert, certainly, on the science or medicine side of things, so I tried to follow along as best I could.
Ms. Szkotnicki, the presentation you handed out here today is quite illuminating. I just want to go over a couple of things so the committee understands. There have been a lot of comments made that I think might lead our viewers to be considerably alarmed, and perhaps not for the right reasons.
You made a distinction between the types of antibiotics in use in the veterinary realm. Mr. Dungate and some of the representatives of industry made reference to those used for therapeutic treatment. Are those the types used when bacterial infections require this kind of intervention? Is it this type of antibiotic use that might pose a potential risk to human antimicrobial resistance?
We've heard here today that the use of the therapeutic type, the stronger type, is limited. Yet we've heard, and there seems to be evidence, that somehow this is increasing microbial resistance in humans. So I'm trying to isolate the source. You say here that none of these pose any kind of risk to human health, so I wonder if you could help us there.
5:15 p.m.
President, Canadian Animal Health Institute
I'll just qualify your ending statement. Everything poses a risk, but the question becomes can we manage the risk? There's lots of effort put into managing the risk.
On your other question, about use of antimicrobials and the impact on resistance--I think that's what it boils down to--the different uses are treatment, prevention, control, and growth promotion. Across any of those applications, the use of any microbials--and I'll eliminate the ionophores from that equation--have the potential to create resistance. The question is, how do we manage that situation?
We manage it through different methods. There is the labelling of the product. We go through the review process. I talked about that as a control. Also is the fact that a lot of the newer products critically important to humans are prescription-only, under veterinary prescription. There has to be a veterinary client-patient relationship. There are prudent-use guidelines that they're following. We also have the producer groups with quality assurance programs that look at maintaining the quality of the product at the farm level right through to the table.
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
Bruce Stanton Conservative Simcoe North, ON
So there's a very rigorous regime in place to essentially make sure you're doing all the best you can to prevent bacterial infection in the animals, because that's a potential risk to human health as well. This all is going into the food chain; you have to prevent it at the front end.
When it's all said and done, one of the things that hasn't come up here today is that most of us don't eat raw chicken—I mean, we cook the stuff—and I think it's widely known that one cooks poultry products to medium doneness. When you follow these normal protocols, does this all become really a moot point? Does cooking the product indeed essentially eliminate any possibility that this is going to result in any kind of diminishment of human health vis-à-vis antimicrobial resistance?
5:20 p.m.
President, Canadian Animal Health Institute
Cooking is probably the best risk management tool at our hands to eliminate the concerns about bacteria, whether they be resistant or non-resistant. With the food level, I think that's one of the simplest risk management tools.
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
The Acting Chair Conservative Tim Uppal
Thank you very much.
Members, I'm going to ask you to stay. We're going to have to do a little bit of committee business.
Thank you, witnesses, for coming and contributing to our study on antibiotics in livestock. We will be going in camera right away to discuss a little bit of committee business, so I have to ask you to leave the room as soon as possible, but thank you for coming.
Members, please stay for a few minutes.
[Proceedings continue in camera]