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A recent legal petition from twelve health advocacy and agricultural labor coalitions is demanding the EPA to cease allowing the use of antimicrobial agents on produce across the United States, highlighting antibiotic-resistant development and health risks to agricultural workers.

Agricultural Industry Uses Large Quantities of Antibiotic Pesticides

The crop production sprays approximately 8 million pounds of antibiotic and antifungal treatments on US produce annually, with a number of these substances prohibited in foreign countries.

“Annually US citizens are at elevated danger from toxic bacteria and diseases because pharmaceutical drugs are sprayed on plants,” stated a public health advocate.

Antibiotic Resistance Creates Major Public Health Risks

The excessive use of antimicrobial drugs, which are critical for addressing medical conditions, as pesticides on produce endangers population health because it can result in drug-resistant microbes. Likewise, overuse of antifungal treatments can lead to fungal diseases that are more resistant with present-day medical drugs.

• Antibiotic-resistant illnesses affect about millions of individuals and cause about thousands of mortalities per year.
• Public health organizations have linked “clinically significant antimicrobials” authorized for crop application to treatment failure, increased risk of staph infections and elevated threat of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.

Ecological and Public Health Impacts

Meanwhile, ingesting chemical remnants on crops can alter the intestinal flora and elevate the chance of long-term illnesses. These agents also taint drinking water supplies, and are considered to damage pollinators. Often low-income and minority field workers are most at risk.

Frequently Used Antibiotic Pesticides and Industry Practices

Agricultural operations spray antibiotics because they kill pathogens that can ruin or wipe out crops. One of the most common antibiotic pesticides is a medical drug, which is commonly used in healthcare. Figures indicate approximately 125,000 pounds have been sprayed on American produce in a one year.

Citrus Industry Pressure and Regulatory Action

The petition coincides with the EPA encounters demands to increase the utilization of pharmaceutical drugs. The citrus plant illness, spread by the Asian citrus psyllid, is destroying citrus orchards in Florida.

“I recognize their desperation because they’re in dire straits, but from a public health point of view this is definitely a obvious choice – it cannot happen,” the advocate said. “The bottom line is the massive issues generated by using human medicine on food crops far outweigh the agricultural problems.”

Alternative Approaches and Long-term Outlook

Advocates propose straightforward crop management steps that should be tried before antibiotics, such as planting crops further apart, breeding more hardy varieties of plants and locating infected plants and rapidly extracting them to stop the infections from propagating.

The formal request provides the EPA about 5 years to answer. Previously, the organization prohibited a pesticide in reaction to a similar regulatory appeal, but a judge overturned the agency's prohibition.

The regulator can enact a prohibition, or must give a justification why it will not. If the regulator, or a later leadership, does not act, then the organizations can file a lawsuit. The process could require more than a decade.

“We are pursuing the extended strategy,” the advocate remarked.