The future use of antibiotics in livestock production as a herd health management tool is changing. Producers will start to see how the government is addressing antibiotic resistance in this country and those changes will effect livestock producers. Kansas State University Professor in Clinical Studies and Veterinarian Dr. Mike Apley said there is a concern over statements made by the White House on antibiotic resistance as a human health issue and animal agriculture has been targeted to some level as a contributor.
Last year the President’s Council of Science and Technology released their PCAST report and it realized there could be a lot of resistance selection from use in humans, but there could be a component from animals. Apley said they are wanting to put together an Advisory panel along with evaluating the amount of antibiotics used. They also want to remove medically important antibiotics from growth promotion uses, which is already ready scheduled to happen in December 2016. The council also wants to find more ways to reduce antibiotics use in agriculture today.
“About 97 percent of the antibiotics that are sold for use in food animals right now are over the counter,” Apley said.
Dr. Apley said there is genuine concerns among producers on the future availability of antibiotics for treatment and prevention of disease in livestock. There are therapeutic uses and he said there are few that can make a claim that producers shouldn't be treating ill animals. Mainstream animal agriculture also utilizes antibiotics as a tool for routine prevention or control of diseases.
“Each food animal species has diseases that tend to give use challenges at certain times in the animal’s life and we’ve used antibiotics to try in come in ahead and if we do it before there are any clinical cases, we call that prevention,” Apley said. “And if we do it when we see a few cases but it hasn’t spread throughout the population yet, we call that control and that is our big focus.”
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