Antibiotic use in livestock

A CDC infographic on how antibiotic-resistant bacteria have the potential to spread from farm animals

Antibiotic use in livestock is the use of antibiotics for any purpose in the husbandry of livestock, which includes treatment when ill (therapeutic), treatment of a group of animals when at least one is diagnosed with clinical infection (metaphylaxis[1]), and preventative treatment (prophylaxis). Antibiotics are an important tool to treat animal as well as human disease, safeguard animal health and welfare, and support food safety.[2] However, used irresponsibly, this may lead to antibiotic resistance which may impact human, animal and environmental health.[3][4][5][6]

While levels of use vary dramatically from country to country, for example some Northern European countries use very low quantities to treat animals compared with humans,[7][8] worldwide an estimated 73% of antimicrobials (mainly antibiotics) are consumed by farm animals.[9] Furthermore, a 2015 study also estimates that global agricultural antibiotic usage will increase by 67% from 2010 to 2030, mainly from increases in use in developing BRIC countries.[10]

Increased antibiotic use is a matter of concern as antibiotic resistance is considered to be a serious threat to human and animal welfare in the future, and growing levels of antibiotics or antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the environment could increase the numbers of drug-resistant infections in both.[11] Bacterial diseases are a leading cause of death and a future without effective antibiotics would fundamentally change the way modern human as well as veterinary medicine is practised.[11][12][13] However, legislation and other curbs on antibiotic use in farm animals are now being introduced across the globe.[14][15][16] In 2017, the World Health Organization strongly suggested reducing antibiotic use in animals used in the food industry.[17]

The use of antibiotics for growth promotion purposes was banned in the European Union from 2006,[18] and the use of sub-therapeutic doses of medically important antibiotics in animal feed and water[19] to promote growth and improve feed efficiency became illegal in the United States on 1 January 2017, through regulatory change enacted by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which sought voluntary compliance from drug manufacturers to re-label their antibiotics.[20][21]

  1. ^ Bousquet-Melou, Alain; Ferran, Aude; Toutain, Pierre-Louis (May 2010). "Prophylaxis & Metaphylaxis in Veterinary Antimicrobial Therapy". Conference: 5th International Conference on Antimicrobial Agents in Veterinary Medicine (AAVM)At: Tel Aviv, Israel – via ResearchGate.
  2. ^ British Veterinary Association, London (May 2019). "BVA policy position on the responsible use of antimicrobials in food producing animals" (PDF). Retrieved 22 March 2020.
  3. ^ Massé, Daniel; Saady, Noori; Gilbert, Yan (4 April 2014). "Potential of Biological Processes to Eliminate Antibiotics in Livestock Manure: An Overview". Animals. 4 (2): 146–163. doi:10.3390/ani4020146. PMC 4494381. PMID 26480034. S2CID 1312176.
  4. ^ Sarmah, Ajit K.; Meyer, Michael T.; Boxall, Alistair B. A. (1 October 2006). "A global perspective on the use, sales, exposure pathways, occurrence, fate and effects of veterinary antibiotics (VAs) in the environment". Chemosphere. 65 (5): 725–759. Bibcode:2006Chmsp..65..725S. doi:10.1016/j.chemosphere.2006.03.026. PMID 16677683.
  5. ^ Kumar, Kuldip; C. Gupta, Satish; Chander, Yogesh; Singh, Ashok K. (1 January 2005). "Antibiotic Use in Agriculture and Its Impact on the Terrestrial Environment". Advances in Agronomy. 87: 1–54. doi:10.1016/S0065-2113(05)87001-4. ISBN 9780120007851.
  6. ^ Boeckel, Thomas P. Van; Glennon, Emma E.; Chen, Dora; Gilbert, Marius; Robinson, Timothy P.; Grenfell, Bryan T.; Levin, Simon A.; Bonhoeffer, Sebastian; Laxminarayan, Ramanan (29 September 2017). "Reducing antimicrobial use in food animals". Science. 357 (6358): 1350–1352. Bibcode:2017Sci...357.1350V. doi:10.1126/science.aao1495. PMC 6510296. PMID 28963240. S2CID 206662316.
  7. ^ ESVAC (European Medicines Agency) (October 2019). "Sales of veterinary antimicrobial agents in 31 European countries in 2017: Trends from 2010 to 2017" (PDF). Retrieved 22 March 2020.
  8. ^ Torrella, Kenny (8 January 2023). "Big Meat just can't quit antibiotics". Vox. Retrieved 23 January 2023.
  9. ^ Boeckel, Thomas P. Van; Pires, João; Silvester, Reshma; Zhao, Cheng; Song, Julia; Criscuolo, Nicola G.; Gilbert, Marius; Bonhoeffer, Sebastian; Laxminarayan, Ramanan (20 September 2019). "Global trends in antimicrobial resistance in animals in low- and middle-income countries" (PDF). Science. 365 (6459): eaaw1944. doi:10.1126/science.aaw1944. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 31604207. S2CID 202699175.
  10. ^ Van Boeckel, Thomas P.; Brower, Charles; Gilbert, Marius; Grenfell, Bryan T.; Levin, Simon A.; Robinson, Timothy P.; Teillant, Aude; Laxminarayan, Ramanan (2015). "Global trends in antimicrobial use in food animals". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 112 (18): 5649–5654. Bibcode:2015PNAS..112.5649V. doi:10.1073/pnas.1503141112. PMC 4426470. PMID 25792457. S2CID 3861749.
  11. ^ a b Bush, Karen; Courvalin, Patrice; Dantas, Gautam; Davies, Julian; Eisenstein, Barry; Huovinen, Pentti; Jacoby, George A.; Kishony, Roy; Kreiswirth, Barry N.; Kutter, Elizabeth; Lerner, Stephen A.; Levy, Stuart; Lewis, Kim; Lomovskaya, Olga; Miller, Jeffrey H.; Mobashery, Shahriar; Piddock, Laura J. V.; Projan, Steven; Thomas, Christopher M.; Tomasz, Alexander; Tulkens, Paul M.; Walsh, Timothy R.; Watson, James D.; Witkowski, Jan; Witte, Wolfgang; Wright, Gerry; Yeh, Pamela; Zgurskaya, Helen I. (2 November 2011). "Tackling antibiotic resistance". Nature Reviews Microbiology. 9 (12): 894–896. doi:10.1038/nrmicro2693. PMC 4206945. PMID 22048738. S2CID 4048235.
  12. ^ Tang, Karen L; Caffrey, Niamh P; Nóbrega, Diego; Cork, Susan C; Ronksley, Paul C; Barkema, Herman W; Polachek, Alicia J; Ganshorn, Heather; Sharma, Nishan; Kellner, James D; Ghali, William A (November 2017). "Restricting the use of antibiotics in food-producing animals and its associations with antibiotic resistance in food-producing animals and human beings: a systematic review and meta-analysis". The Lancet Planetary Health. 1 (8): e316–e327. doi:10.1016/S2542-5196(17)30141-9. PMC 5785333. PMID 29387833.
  13. ^ Cite error: The named reference pmid25918440 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  14. ^ European Medicines Agency (4 September 2019). "Implementation of the new Veterinary Medicines Regulation in the EU".
  15. ^ OECD, Paris (May 2019). "Working Party on Agricultural Policies and Markets: Antibiotic Use and Antibiotic Resistance in Food Producing Animals in China". Retrieved 22 March 2020.
  16. ^ US Food & Drug Administration (July 2019). "Timeline of FDA Action on Antimicrobial Resistance". Food and Drug Administration. Retrieved 22 March 2020.
  17. ^ "WHO guidelines on use of medically important antimicrobials in food-producing animals" (PDF).
  18. ^ European Commission, Brussels (December 2005). "Ban on antibiotics as growth promoters in animal feed enters into effect".
  19. ^ "The Judicious Use of Medically Important Antimicrobial Drugs in Food-Producing Animals" (PDF). Guidance for Industry (#209). 2012.
  20. ^ "Veterinary Feed Directive (VFD) Basics". AVMA. Archived from the original on 15 April 2017. Retrieved 14 March 2017.
  21. ^ University of Nebraska, Lincoln (October 2015). "Veterinary Feed Directive Questions and Answers". UNL Beef. Retrieved 14 March 2017.