Health Committee on March 8th, 2011

[Ruby Dhalla, Liberal, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

Regardless of resources, is there a tracking system in place?

If you have an individual out there right now who goes to Shoppers Drug Mart and wants to buy 50 bottles of Advil, because it's available over the counter, no one is going to be able to monitor that. If the person goes to the family doctor and is actually prescribed a certain set of medications, the doctor is going to be able to look at his or her chart.

Who's monitoring how much usage of these over-the-counter products is occurring?

[Dr. Leigh Rosengren]

You have hit the nail on the head. You have it exactly right. In Canada, because we have many veterinary drugs that are OTC, or over-the-counter, the only way to get accurate drug use information is to go directly to the farm. We can't do it at a pharmacy level. We can't do it at any level other than by going on-farm, which is why the CIPARS program has been designed as such.

[Ruby Dhalla, Liberal, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

From my study and research of it, which is not going to be as extensive as your knowledge and wisdom, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency doesn't share its data with CIPARS. Is that correct?

You have the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, which is monitoring the amount of antibiotics being used in the chickens, which is not providing that information to a body that is also supposed to be helping and which I believe you, as the Chicken Farmers of Canada, are working with.

[Dr. Leigh Rosengren]

Those are two separate issues. The antibiotics are reported on the flock sheet. I presume that this is what you're referring to. Those flock sheets are designed to collect information so as to avoid residues in Canadian meat.

There's a very distinct difference between residues and resistance. Most of the Canadian regulation is in place to avoid residues.

The CFIA information is used on a per-case basis to ensure that Canadian meat is safe and avoids residues. That information, you're right, is not passed on to CIPARS, because it's collecting for a separate perspective; it wouldn't be useful for tabulating resistance.

[Ruby Dhalla, Liberal, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

When you use the words “judicious use”, to me that would mean in a therapeutic sense and not in a preventative manner. I think that needs to be defined.

To Dr. Hansen, Dr. Smith, and perhaps to the Chicken Farmers of Canada, could you provide a recommendation? I think what you have told us here today actually creates more worry. We need to do something. Someone needs to get on top of this. From the studies I have read and the information we have seen, the amount of antibiotic use going on with chickens is alarming.

What recommendations would you have for this committee?

[The Acting Chair, Conservative, Tim Uppal]

I think you'll have to get those in writing. Your time is up.

I'm going to move on to Mr. Brown.

[Patrick Brown, Conservative, Barrie, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

One of the challenges with this format is that we get to ask you questions and sometimes at the end of the round make comments. I'm sure you'd love to add your two cents in.

In one of the previous rounds, Mr. Smith said he had two questions that he thought were not being answered. One was about antibiotics and why the levels weren't disclosed. Another was about ceftiofur. Maybe you could respond to that. It would be interesting to hear your take on his concerns.

[Mike Dungate]

With respect to ceftiofur, it is not used willy-nilly. Ceftiofur is used in ova to prevent a sickness in day-old chicks that come from a susceptible breeder flock. It's not used across the country. It's not used all the time. It is used when there is a specific issue. It's used once in the egg, and that's it. It is not in the feed. Let's be clear when we're talking about something like ceftiofur. It's important how it's used. I appreciate the opportunity there.

As for disclosing levels, we report to CFIA all the antibiotic usage that is put on a flock.

The other thing that comes out, in reference Ms. Dhalla's question, is that there is a small percentage of use in chickens that is not done by a veterinarian. If you have a flock issue and it goes through a flock, you're going to use a whole flock. You're going to put trust in a veterinarian to figure out what you need to do, because we have six weeks to market in a chicken flock. We don't have time to test one out, see if it works, go back to the drug store, see if Advil works better than Tylenol. We're going to go to the vet, and the vet is going to prescribe. That's how it gets done. The percentage of over-the-counter in our industry is small.

[Patrick Brown, Conservative, Barrie, ON]

How do you feel the regulation of your industry compares with that of other countries? I've heard some reference to the U.S. and EU. Is it your sense that the regulations are comparable, or do you feel that there is less regulation here?

[Mike Dungate]

I think we have good strong regulations on farming in this country. One of the issues regulation-wise is the availability of alternatives. We've heard “Just stop doing it, and do that”. Some countries have approvals in for vaccines or other alternatives. If we don't have any of those, we're just going to cause a disaster if we say “Stop using it, and that's it”. That's not going to lead, as Dr. Bergen said, to improvements in human health.

We need to be smart in how we address this. We need to move away and reduce. You have chicken farmers in Canada whose policy is to find the best way to reduce the use of those antibiotics that are of significant medical importance to humans.

[Patrick Brown, Conservative, Barrie, ON]

Mr. Smith, how come that level of disclosure isn't adequate? Did you have the interpretation that ceftiofur was being used in feed? What was your understanding?

[Rick Smith]

I'm quite sure I never said ceftiofur was given to adult birds. It is used in a widespread basis on eggs that don't show any particular sign of being ill. So it is used in a widespread way. It is a drug important for human use, so I don't understand how the chicken farmers can have their cake and eat it too.

On the one hand, they're saying they're being responsible and they're trying to steer away from drugs that are important to human medicine. On the other hand, they're admitting that they use this particular drug that's important for human medicine, for kids, in a widespread way on eggs that are not sick. So it's one or the other.

I just heard Mr. Dungate admit in response to Ms. Dhalla's question that nobody really does have a handle on over-the-counter antibiotics. So we cannot in Canada produce the kinds of statistics that Dr. Hansen and I have quoted from the United States and Australia. We don't know in Canada. We can't say whether 75% of antibiotics, excluding ionophores, are used on animals. We just don't have those numbers in Canada. That's a problem.

[The Acting Chair, Conservative, Tim Uppal]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Leslie.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We heard from Mr. Dungate some ideas about cement floors and making sure that a barn is cleaned entirely before a new flock comes in.

Then, Ms. Hansen, you were saying that Denmark has found other ways to ensure healthy livestock and promote production, and I'm assuming they are ways like Mr. Dungate has proposed. Can you share with us how Denmark has been able to promote production and ensure healthy livestock? And how is it different from our using antibiotics, it seems, as the first line of defence?

[Dr. Gail Hansen]

What I know more about is the pork industry, because that's what I really spent some time on. They wean their pigs a little bit later than they tend to here. They use the probiotics. They use what are called organic acids, so the proprionic acid, which seems to work as well as the antibiotics for promoting growth in their hogs.

Even though there are very industrialized methods of growing hogs, they don't have the hogs quite as densely populated as is common on this continent.

I'd also point out that there's been a lot of talk about ionophores today, but the realities are there is penicillin, there are tetracyclines and macrolides--tylosin, which is similar to erythromycin--that are also used non-therapeutically and for growth promotion in livestock.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Thank you.

You touched on production, and I actually wanted to ask Mr. Prescott a question about size of production and how that correlates to the need to use antibiotics. Do you have information to share with us about that?

[Dr. John Prescott]

On the relationship between the size of animal production and the use of antimicrobials, no, I don't have any comment. I don't think there's any relationship to the size of production. I think a lot of it relates to regulation, not the larger the herd the more antibiotics you use. I don't think that's connected.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Did you have a different opinion?

[Dr. Gail Hansen]

I can't speak for Canada, obviously, but I know in the United States the U.S. Department of Agriculture did a study and they did find that, for the most part, the larger the farm, the more likely they were to use antibiotics for non-therapeutic purposes. That may be different in the United States from what it is in Canada. I don't know.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

And it may be just practices, not necessarily that if it's larger they need to use....

[Dr. John Prescott]

I think there would be huge management differences with different farms.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Right. Sure.

Mr. Smith, I know that novel antibiotic creation is really in a slump. We're just not making new antibiotics and we hear about the dangers of antibiotic resistance. What do you know about the rate of antimicrobial resistance compared to the rate of new antibiotics being created?

[Rick Smith]

It's an interesting question, and I'm not sure. I'm a scientist, so I'm trying to imagine how you'd graph those two things.

But certainly you're right. The creation of new antibiotics is a very difficult enterprise, there's no question. The World Health Organization, the Canadian Medical Association, the American Medical Association, and any doctors group you want to talk to are extremely concerned about the rapid general increase in antibiotic resistance.

I'm delighted that the health committee is hearing this issue—examining and considering it—because first and foremost this is a public health issue. Yes, it's about livestock production, but first and foremost this is a public health issue. Other jurisdictions are showing the way in terms of protecting public health.

I have a 2009 document from the Danish government with very strong conclusions. Because of the Danish and EU policies, total antibiotic consumption in food-producing animals has been reduced by 50%—in excess of 50%—since the early 1990s. Animal health has not been compromised. Agricultural productivity has continued to improve. Denmark continues to be a monstrous exporter of food animals. We haven't talked about it very much here, but consumer prices have not been affected.

Again, if there's the possibility that the Government of Canada can do better in this area, can make some contribution to bringing down rates of antimicrobial resistance.... The Danish and the EU examples have shown that it's no big deal, frankly, for livestock producers. Why wouldn't we do it?

[The Acting Chair, Conservative, Tim Uppal]

Thank you very much, Mr. Smith.

Mr. Stanton.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Chair, before we go on, I have one very small point of order.

It's unfortunate that the Public Health Agency and Health Canada aren't here. I know we'll talk about this at another time, but I just want to say on the record now that I really think we need to have them here to actually find out what's happening at the federal level.

Thanks.