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LETTERS I BOOKS I POLICY FORUM I EDUCATION FORUM I PERSPECTIVES

LETTERS
edited by Jennifer Sills

Antibiotics: Call for Real Change operations they have not visited recently for administration to animals

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IN HIS EDITORIAL “TIME TO DEAL WITH ANTIBIOTICS” (15 NOVEMBER
2013, p. 777), D. Kennedy mentioned our assessment of the impact
of the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production
(IFAP) (1). We support his call to end the misuse of antibiotics in
animal agriculture. We believe, however, that finalization of the U.S.
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) guidance documents will not
have a meaningful impact on the way these life-saving drugs are
administered to animals; thus, they will not slow the
contribution of IFAP to our rapid progression toward
a postantibiotic era.
These guidances—nonbinding pleas for the coop-
eration of drug companies—do not call for an end to
the use of antimicrobials in the absence of a microbial
disease or documented disease exposure, as recom-
mended by the Commission (2). Instead, they would
effectively rebrand uses currently labeled “growth pro-
motion” as “disease prevention.” Like growth promotion, prophylac-
tic uses entail low, subtherapeutic doses and can span much of the ani-
mal’s life span. They apply continuous selective pressure for antibiotic
resistance and may even induce new resistance-conferring mutations
(3). Furthermore, the FDA’s proposal for veterinary oversight would
eliminate the federal requirement that a valid “veterinarian-client-
patient relationship” exist before veterinarians order the use of antibi-
otics in feed, allowing veterinarians to prescribe antibiotics for use at
they have never seen.
The head of a large drug company recently told The Wall Street
Journal that the guidances will not substantially affect revenues (4),
implying that minimal changes to antibiotic sales are expected. This
explains why companies support voluntary limits on their products:
The limits will have little practical effect.
We share Kennedy’s assessment of the problem, but instead would
call for meaningful regulation—comparable to what he attempted as
FDA commissioner almost four decades ago—to curb irresponsible
antibiotic use. If such efforts fall short, legislative relief is needed.
KEEVE E. NACHMAN,* TYLER J. S. SMITH, ROBERT P. MARTIN
Environmental Health Sciences, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health,
Baltimore, MD 21205, USA.
*Corresponding author. E-mail: knachman@jhsph.edu
References
1. Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future, “Industrial Food Animal Production in America:
Examining the Impact of the Pew Commission’s Priority Recommendations” (Johns Hopkins
Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, 2013); www.jhsph.edu/research/
centers-and-institutes/johns-hopkins-center-for-a-livable-future/_pdf/research/clf_reports/
CLF-PEW-for%20Web.pdf.
2. Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production, “Putting Meat on the Table:
Industrial Farm Animal Production in America” (Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public
Health, Baltimore, MD, 2008); www.ncifap.org/_images/PCIFAPFin.pdf.
3. D. C. Love, M. F. Davis, A. Bassett, A. Gunther, K. E. Nachman, Environ. Health Perspect.
119, 279 (2011).
4. P. Loftus, “Zoetis chief leads animal-health firm following split from Pfizer,”Wall Street
Journal (2013); http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB100014240527023037555045792
07710851450896.

Antibiotics: Discontinue
Low-Dose Use
IN HIS EDITORIAL “TIME TO DEAL WITH ANTI-
biotics” (15 November 2013, p. 777), D.
Kennedy correctly calls again (as he did in
the 1970s) for curbs on the overuse of anti-
biotics on industrial farms, where excessive
animal crowding has favored the likelihood
of disease and the perceived need to rely on
low-dose prophylactic antibiotics to stifle
outbreaks.
It is critical to recognize that veterinari-
ans must continue to have access to effective
antibiotics to treat animals that are clinically
ill from bacterial infections. Such treatment
entails the targeted use of therapeutic doses
for short periods of time at concentrations
that are capable of achieving high bacterial
kill rates. However, the practice of routinely
administering antibiotics at low-dose con-
centrations in feed and water for extended
periods of time to large populations of ani-
mals that lack signs of clinical illness is the
surest way to spawn resistant bacteria (1).
Even more threatening, and many would
say unethical, has been the industry’s use of
low-dose antibiotics for purposes of growth
promotion in healthy animals.
Although the FDA has recently deter-
mined the use of antibiotics for growth pro-
motion to be injudicious, it continues to
condone the use of low-dose antibiotics in
feed and water for disease prevention (2).
Kennedy states that the FDA Guidance for
Industry #213 “would end antibiotic use for
CREDIT: ALVAREZ/ISTOCKPHOTO (MODIFIED BY G. GRULLÓN/SCIENCE)
growth promotion” and restrict prophylac-
tic use in feed and water to veterinary pre-
scriptions, but it must first be recognized
that this is a guidance document only and
has no enforcement authority. Furthermore,
if low-dose concentrations of antibiot-
ics continue to be allowed for preventive
use (even by prescription), they provide a
“back door” through which growth pro-
motion effects can still be exploited under
another name, thereby incentivizing indus-
try to secure the needed prescriptions and
essentially continue business as usual. In
this respect, Kennedy’s enthusiasm for the
new FDA guidelines may be overly optimis-

136 10 JANUARY 2014 VOL 343 SCIENCE www.sciencemag.org

Published by AAAS
 Don’t blame the
Dingo
142
tic. Rather, to truly deal with antibiotics, we
are going to have to find innovative ways to
reconfigure the production environments
on animal farms that are grounded in sound
husbandry principles and obviate the need
for low-dose antibiotics in any form.
RAYMOND J. TARPLEY
College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences,
Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA.
E-mail: rtarpley@cvm.tamu.edu
References
1. M. T. Brewer et al., Am. J. Vet. Res. 74, 1078 (2013).
2. FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine, “Guidance
for Industry #209: The Judicious Use of Medically
Important Antimicrobial Drugs in Food-Producing
Animals” (www.fda.gov/downloads/AnimalVeterinary/
GuidanceComplianceEnforcement/GuidanceforIndustry/
UCM216936.pdf).
Science for Sale: Fair
Evaluation Standards
IN HER NEWS FOCUS STORY “CHINA’S PUBLICA-
tion bazaar” (29 November 2013, p. 1035),
M. Hvistendahl points out that many scien-
tists and organizations are starting to abandon
the use of impact factors to evaluate a single
researcher. Science leaders in China are con-
sidering new standards as well, such as total
paper citations.
The use of the Science Citation Index
(SCI) may have some disadvantages, such as
the financial incentives to forgery described
in the article. However, in China, it may
be the fairest standard to assess scientists.
Without the SCI standard, the chance of get-
ting research funding in China would be
entirely based on the scientist’s relations with
government. Using total paper citations or
number of patents awarded would have simi-
lar problems, because both of these metrics
can be influenced by money.
Letters to the Editor
Letters (~300 words) discuss material published in
Science in the past 3 months or matters of gen-
eral interest. Letters are not acknowledged upon
receipt. Whether published in full or in part, Let-
ters are subject to editing for clarity and space.
Letters submitted, published, or posted elsewhere,
in print or online, will be disqualified. To submit a
Letter, go to www.submit2science.org.
www.sciencemag.org SCIENCE VOL 343
Computing with
light waves
144
Thus, although the SCI or impact factor
system has drawbacks, it is still a fair stan-
dard. More research is needed to build a sys-
tem, based on impact factor or SCI, in which
cheaters stand to lose more than they gain.
CAI LUO
Department of Automation, Tsinghua University, Beijing,
100084, China. E-mail: luo_cai@tsinghua.edu.cn
Science for Sale:
Authorship Confirmed
IN HER NEWS FOCUS STORY “CHINA’S PUB-
lication bazaar” (29 November 2013, p.
1035), M. Hvistendahl highlighted the
issue of scientific articles being for sale in
China. This problem is not widely known by
journal editors outside of China. The arti-
cle indicated that a meta-analysis published
in the Canadian Journal of Neurological
Sciences (CJNS) was available for sale on
21 August 2012 on Core Editing’s blog,
before submission of the paper to CJNS.
At CJNS, we conducted an investigation of
the paper in question. The corresponding
author was able to provide detailed informa-
tion of their data analysis, including screen
shots of a list of files used for data analy-
sis from the first author’s computer, output
from the data analysis program used, copies
of handwritten notes used for data analysis,
records of discussion between the authors
regarding the results, and previous versions
of the paper. The authors also provided
records of e-mail correspondences from
February 2012 between the first author and
the author of a paper included in the meta-
analysis in which the first author asked and
obtained data for the meta-analysis. These
e-mail communications were independently
verified by the U.S.-based author who pro-
vided the additional data. On the basis of
this information, we concluded that the
paper published in CJNS was the work of
the first and the corresponding author of the
paper.
ROBERT CHEN
Department of Medicine (Neurology), Toronto Western
Hospital, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5T 2S8,
Canada and Editor-in-Chief, Canadian Journal of
Neurological Sciences. E-mail: robert.chen@uhn.ca
10 JANUARY 2014
Published by AAAS
Science for Sale:
Improve Ethics Education
WE APPLAUD SCIENCE FOR ITS INVESTIGATIVE
journalism on “China’s publication bazaar”
(M. Hvistendahl, News Focus, 29 November
2013, p. 1035). This article should stimu-
late other journals to undertake similar
research. Indeed, we would like to suggest
that conducting such research become a
standard component in the responsible con-
duct of research courses now required of
all National Science Foundation (NSF)–
funded students and postdocs.
Unfortunately, the NSF requirement is,
at many universities, met with minimalist
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online courses. Even at our own institution,
there has been resistance to making ethics
education mandatory for all graduate stu-
dents. We believe that just as true science
and engineering education requires origi-
nal research or experimental designs rather
than simply learning the results of others’
work, ethics education should include more
than studying classic ethical theory, profes-
sional codes, and case studies. This would,
however, require turning a one-credit course
into a more substantial effort. Such a course
would not only enhance ethics education. It
could well benefit the fields of science and
engineering, as well as the ways in which
these fields serve society.
Finally, we would recommend that
courses in research ethics be required of
all graduate students, not solely those who
receive support from NSF or National
Institutes of Health grants.
CARL MITCHAM* AND ROEL SNIEDER
Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO 80401–1887 USA.
*Corresponding author. E-mail: cmitcham@mines.edu
CORRECTIONS AND CLARIFICATIONS
News Focus: “China’s publication bazaar” by M. Hvistendahl
(29 November 2013, p. 1035). Wang Mouyue, managing
director of the Chinese Medical Journal, was quoted incor-
rectly due to an error in transcription from the original
Chinese. The article quotes Mr. Wang as saying that “China’s
paper-selling market is very large, and there’s every sort of
agency imaginable out there.” He actually said: “China’s
paper-publishing market is very large, and there’s every sort
of agency imaginable out there.” Also, the article stated that
the Journal of Zhejiang University-SCIENCE is not indexed in
SCI. The three journals under the title Journal of Zhejiang
University-SCIENCE are all listed in SCI Expanded. The PDF
and HTML versions online have been corrected to reflect these
changes. In addition, the article described how Core Editing
had advertised authorship for sale on 12 papers listed on its
blog. The corresponding author of one of these papers, later
published by the Canadian Journal of Neurological Sciences,
has since provided documentation to Science and to the edi-
tor of the Canadian Journal of Neurological Sciences indicat-
ing that none of the authors paid to have their names added
to the paper.
137
 Science for Sale: Authorship Confirmed
Robert Chen

Science 343 (6167), . DOI: 10.1126/science.343.6167.137-b

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