Taco Bell to cut medically important antibiotics in beef supply by 25%
Taco Bell announced yesterday that it aims to reduce the amount of medically important antibiotics used in its US and Canadian beef supply chains by 25% by 2025.
The company said in a press release that as part of this new policy, it will favor suppliers that are reducing the use of antibiotics deemed by the World Health Organization (WHO) to be important to human health, and give preference to suppliers that increase veterinary oversight for treating sick animals. Taco Bell will also participate in the US Roundtable for Sustainable Beef and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's Antimicrobial Resistance Challenge.
Taco Bell is the latest fast-food chain to commit to reducing medically important antibiotics in its beef supply chain. In December 2018, McDonald's announced it will work with its beef suppliers in the United States and nine other countries to cut the use of medically important antibiotics.
Although several fast-food chains have completely removed medically important antibiotics from their poultry supply chains in recent years, far fewer have committed to cutting antibiotics from their beef supply. Advocates for reduced antibiotic use in food-producing animals have been pushing the fast-food industry to make changes.
"Fast food chains are seeing the writing on the wall: Customers want better beef," Lena Brook, director of food campaigns at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), said in a statement. "While its commitment leaves significant room for improvement, it's a move in the right direction and shows the pressure is on for competitors to take action."
According to the most recent report from the Food and Drug Administration, 42% of the medically important antibiotics sold for use in food-producing animals in the United States in 2017 were for cattle.
Taco Bell said it will report on its progress in 2022.
Jul 29 Taco Bell press release
Jul 29 NRDC press release
New antifungal shows promise in phase 2 trial
Biotechnology company Cidara Therapeutics yesterday reported positive topline results from a phase 2 trial of it antifungal candidate rezafungin.
According to a company press release, the results from the STRIVE B trial indicate the rezafungin, a novel echinocandin developed for treatment of invasive fungal infections, met all of its objectives for efficacy, safety, and tolerability in patients with candidemia and/or invasive candidiasis. The objective of the trial, which included 91 patients in the microbiological intention-to-treat population, was to compare the efficacy and safety of rezafungin administered once-weekly versus caspofungin dosed daily. Efficacy measures included clearance of Candida from the blood or other normally sterile sites, resolution of systemic signs of infection, investigator assessment of clinical response, and overall survival.
Topline results showed that patients treated with rezafungin had numerically improved outcomes compared to caspofungin across all efficacy measures, and was generally safe and well-tolerated.
"Rezafungin has the potential to be the first safe and effective once-weekly, first-line treatment option for patients with difficult-to-treat and deadly invasive Candida infections, and we believe this trial moves us one step closer to market," said Cidara president and chief executive officer Jeffrey Stein, PhD.
The FDA has designated rezafungin as a Qualified Infectious Disease Product and granted it Fast Track status for treatment of candidemia and invasive candidiasis.
Jul 29 Cidara Therapeutics press release
WHO AWaRe index adapted to improve stewardship in England
A paper today in the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy describes the creation of an antibiotic use index in England based on the WHO AWaRe index.
The AWaRe index was recently created by the WHO to classify key antibiotics into three categories: Access antibiotics that should be widely available, Watch antibiotics that should be monitored for toxicity concerns and/or resistance potential, and Reserve antibiotics that should be saved for complex, multidrug-resistant infections. The tool was developed to help nations evaluate and optimize antibiotic use, but national variations in antibiotic resistance and use require each country to ensure that the index is relevant for country-specific use.
To adapt the AWaRe index for use in English hospitals, researchers from Public Health England collected national-level antibiotic prescribing data from 2011 through 2016 to see which antibiotics from the WHO AWaRe index were commonly used in primary and secondary care. Antibiotics used in England but not included in the WHO AWaRe index were then added to an appropriate category following a workshop consensus exercise with national experts, and the methodology was tested using national antibiotic prescribing data.
In 2016, 46 of 108 antibiotics included within the WHO AWaRe index were routinely used in England, along with an additional 25 antibiotics that were not included in the WHO AWaRe index. WHO AWaRe-excluded and -included antibiotics were reviewed and reclassified according to the England-adapted AWaRE index, with justification by experts for each addition or alteration.
Applying the England-adapted AWaRe index, Access antibiotics accounted for the majority (60.9%) of prescribing in primary care, followed by Watch (37.9%) and Reserve (0.8%). In acute secondary care, Access antibiotics still accounted for most of the antibiotics used (49.7%), but Watch (46.9%) and Reserve (3.3%) antibiotics were used more frequently. There was an unexplained twofold variation in prescribing between hospitals within each AWaRe category, highlighting the potential for quality improvement.
"We recommend that countries should review the AWaRe categorizations in their country, potentially using similar methodology, and consider which antibiotics from each category should be moved into the relevant category based on resistance profiles and antibiotic use," the authors of the paper write. "Quality improvement methodology can then be applied to organizations to improve antimicrobial stewardship and, in particular, preserve antibiotics in the Watch and Reserve categories."
Jul 30 J Antimicrob Chemother article