Friend,
Orange trees are being doused with lifesaving antibiotics.
In the eleventh hour of the Trump administration, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved the use of streptomycin, a critically important antibiotic for human medicine, as a pesticide on citrus trees.
We are calling on the new EPA Administrator Michael Regan to reverse this decision so we can keep medically important antibiotics effective. Will you join us in urging the EPA to stop this dangerous overuse of lifesaving drugs?
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As citrus greening disease, which kills citrus trees, continues to spread across the United States, citrus farmers are resorting to spraying orchards with medically important antibiotics to combat it. While this use may keep the disease at bay for an extra season, it is not a cure, and overusing medically important antibiotics in this way can exacerbate antibiotic resistance and endanger local communities.
In 2020, the World Health Organization named antimicrobial resistance a "top 10 public health threat facing humanity."[1] By increasing our use of antibiotics in crop production, we give resistant bacteria more chances to multiply and spread. Due to their resistance to antibiotics, these bacterial infections can be very difficult, if not impossible, to treat.
Both oxytetracycline and streptomycin, two medically important antibiotics being sprayed widely on citrus crops, are used to combat a variety of common illnesses in people such as pneumonia, meningitis or urinary tract infections.[2,3] These common illnesses could become much more dangerous if the antibiotics used to treat them are no longer effective.
That's why we're asking you to join us in calling on EPA Administrator Regan to stop allowing the spraying of medically important antibiotics on citrus trees. Add your name today.
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Further misuse of antibiotics in agriculture spells disaster for antibiotic resistance. In fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration expressed concerns about approving these antibiotics as pesticides for use on citrus crops.[4,5]
As the Biden administration works to put the current pandemic behind us, let's not create another.
Take action: Tell the EPA that you want to end antibiotic overuse on citrus crops.
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Sincerely,
Faye Park
President
1. "Antimicrobial Resistance," World Health Organization, October 13, 2020.
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2. Michael Stewart, "Oxytetracycline tablets," Patient, December 11, 2020.
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3. RxList, "Streptomycin," August 1, 2018.
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4. Andrew Jacobs, "Citrus Farmers Facing Deadly Bacteria Turn to Antibiotics, Alarming Health Officials," New York Times, May 17, 2019.
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5. Chris Dall, "Lawmakers urge EPA to rethink use of antibiotics on citrus trees," CIDRAP, August 29, 2019.
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