The EPA gave the green light to spraying antibiotics on citrus trees -- putting the effectiveness of these life-saving drugs at risk. Tell the EPA to preserve our antibiotics. Add your name:
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Anonymous,
Spraying antibiotics on our citrus trees puts our life-saving medicines at risk -- and now we know it won't even work.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ignored warnings from federal scientists when it proposed spraying two types of antibiotics -- ones we need for treating humans -- for use in U.S. citrus groves.[1]
The agency approved one of those antibiotics for expanded use, but the other proposal is still pending. The widespread application of these important medicines risks creating antibiotic-resistant "superbugs."
Tell the EPA to preserve our life-saving medicines.
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A new study focusing on one of those antibiotics found that spraying the drug on citrus trees has almost no effect on the citrus infection growers hope to treat known as "greening."[2,3] The effects of the drug's overuse on human health, however, could be serious. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns that using antibiotics in this way may breed antibiotic resistant bacteria that could pose health risks to humans.
When an antibiotic is administered widely and for an extensive period of time, only the toughest bugs survive. When they breed, they create new strains of resistant bacteria that can stand up to even our most effective drugs -- and beat them. Every year, our most important medicines get weaker because of overuse, potentially leading to hundreds of thousands of deaths.[4]
Add your name to help keep our antibiotics effective.
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Our antibiotics are too critical to throw away spraying them on oranges, especially when doing so won't solve the problem. The EPA needs to rescind its approval for spraying our life-saving medicines on citrus trees before they lose their effectiveness.
Tell EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler to stop the bulk spraying of antibiotics on citrus trees.
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Thank you,
Faye Park
President
1. Andrew Jacobs, "Spraying Antibiotics to Fight Citrus Scourge Doesn't Help, Study Finds," New York Times, August 16, 2019.
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2. Jinyun Li, zhiqian pang, Shuo Duan, Donghwan Lee, Vladimir Kolbasov, and Nian Wang, "The in planta effective concentration of oxytetracycline against Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus for suppression of citrus Huanglongbing," American Physical Society, August 1, 2019.
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3. "Citrus Greening," the United States Department of Agriculture, accessed September 4, 2019.
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4. Fergus Walsh, "Superbugs to kill 'more than cancer' by 2050," BBC News December 11, 2014.
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