U.S. Tightens Rules on Antibiotics Use for Livestock

[Eugene]

Source: New York Times

U.S. Tightens Rules on Antibiotics Use for Livestock
By GARDINER HARRIS
Published: April 11, 2012

Farmers and ranchers will for the first time need a prescription from a veterinarian before using antibiotics in farm animals, in hopes that more judicious use of the drugs will reduce the tens of thousands of human deaths that result each year from the drugs’ overuse.

The Food and Drug Administration announced the new rule Wednesday after trying for more than 35 years to stop farmers and ranchers from feeding antibiotics to cattle, pigs, chickens and other animals simply to help the animals grow larger. Using small amounts of antibiotics over long periods of time leads to the growth of bacteria that are resistant to the drugs’ effects, endangering humans who become infected but cannot be treated with routine antibiotic therapy.

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Michael Taylor, the F.D.A.’s deputy commissioner for food, predicted that the new restrictions would save lives because farmers would have to convince a veterinarian that their animals were either sick or at risk of getting a specific illness. Just using the drugs for growth will be disallowed and, it is hoped, this will cut their use sharply. The new requirements will also make obtaining antibiotics more cumbersome and expensive.

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Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/12/us/antibiotics-for-livestock-will-require-prescription-fda-says.html

[rurallib]

1. I will believe it when I see it.

[MichiganVote]

2. Yup. They already use stuff from outside the country.

[Revlon10]

3. Why does livestock need antibiotics ????? Feed them grass

if they need antibiotics, then they are sick, if they are sick, we should not be eating them. Simple. The USDA. Should enforce a rule that sick animals are not to be killed for food.