ARAC in the News

A group of U.K. infectious disease experts argue that stopping "antibiotics sooner is a safe and effective way to reduce antibiotic overuse.” ARAC director Dr. Lance Price responded: "I think they go too far in saying we need to stop this messaging. We know antibiotics are not smart bombs or snipers—they do not target only one desired body part like the bladder, as we would like. But to say, ‘Let’s pull the plug on this messaging without providing a reasonable, actionable counter message’ is totally irresponsible.”

The Certified Responsible Antibiotic Use (CRAU) standard was developed by School Food Focus in 2015 to minimize the use of antibiotics in poultry production, and offer schools a viable way to put a better poultry on the menu. ARAC staff has worked closely with School Food Focus over the years to help ensure the CRAU standard is rooted in the latest scientific developments. In 2017, School Food Focus transferred management of the standard to ARAC. 

“‘This one lives in your butt,’ he says, holding an oblong E. coli with two googly eyes and several shoe-string flagella, and gesturing in a way that brings to mind this particular bacteria’s diarrheal consequences...” So begins this profile in Quartz of ARAC's Dr. Lance Price. 

Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment published a review by ARAC Director Dr. Lance Price, Benjamin Koch and Bruce Hungate at Northern Arizona University. The review, "Food-animal production and the spread of antibiotic resistance: the role of ecology, that outlines how tracking bacterial movement between humans and animals is key to understanding antibiotic resistance. It examines how genomic data are elucidating, in a unprecedented detail, the pathways by which antibiotic-resistant bacteria move between food animals and humans.

Emergence of colistin resistance in farm animals around the world takes researchers by surprise. ARAC Director Dr. Lance Price explains how the gene’s spread is one of the clearest examples of how antibiotic use on farms can lead to resistance in human infections.

 

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