Row over animal drug risk to people  By Mark Metherell November
25, 2004  A Federal Government agency will ban the use of an
animal antibiotic as a growth promoter but has stopped short of
a total ban, despite a finding that the drug has the potential
to trigger severe resistance to antibiotics in humans.  After a
four-year review of the drug, virginiamycin, the Australian
Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority has found a "very
low" risk of it generating antibiotic resistance in animals that
could be spread to humans in infected meat.  But an authority
spokesman, Martin Holmes, said that if the antibiotic resistance
did spread to vulnerable patients, the "likely impact on people
requiring treatment with related antibiotics would be severe".
Virginiamycin has been used to boost growth in cattle, pigs and
poultry. Under the new rules it will be prescribed by
veterinarians only for livestock diseases. The drug is in the
same class of antibiotics as medicines "of last resort" - when
humans suffer infecti