WASHINGTON - On May 4, the Pew Campaign on Human Health and Industrial Farming, in collaboration with Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Representative Louise Slaughter (D-NY) and Representative Howard Berman (D-CA), will host Capitol Hill briefings on Denmark's experience in ending the routine use of antibiotics in healthy food animals.

WHAT: Briefings on Denmark's experience in ending routine use of antibiotics in healthy food animals

WHEN: Tuesday, May 4, 2010

House briefing: 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM

Room 2255, Rayburn House Building

Senate briefing: 2:00 PM - 3:30 PM

Room 188, Russell Senate Building

WHO: Jorgen Schlundt, Ph.D., D.V.M., director, Department of Food Safety and Zoonoses, World Health Organization (Switzerland)

Hanne-Dorthe Emborg, D.V.M., Ph.D., scientist, National Food Institute, Division of Microbiology and Risk Assessment, Denmark Technical University (Denmark)

Niels Frimodt-Møller, M.D., D.M.Sc., head, Antibiotic Research, National Center for Antimicrobials and Infection Control, State Serum Institute, a government agency similar to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Denmark)

Kaj Munck, proprietor, a farm that produces 10,000 hogs every year (Denmark)

Shelley Hearne, Dr.P.H., managing director, Pew Health Group, moderator (U.S.A.)

Denmark is one of the largest exporters of pork in the world. The United States has an effective model in Denmark to reduce antibiotic resistance caused in part by the overuse of antibiotics in food animal production. Using predominantly an industrialized system, the Danes produce more than 26 million hogs each year and sell nearly 90 percent of its pork to nations around the globe. In 1998, Denmark became one of the first countries proactively seeking to reduce the growing human health threat of antibiotic resistance by phasing out the routine use of antibiotics in healthy food animals, a practice that continues in the United States.

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The Pew Campaign on Human Health and Industrial Farming is a joint effort of the Pew Health Group and the Pew Environment Group working to phase out the routine use of antibiotics on industrial farms. Learn more at www.saveantibiotics.org.