Sales of Antibiotics for Livestock Up Before FDA Regulations are Implemented

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Agri-Pulse reports: 

Sales of medically important antibiotics for food-producing animals rose by 2 percent last year and are up 26 percent since 2009, the Food and Drug Administration says in its latest annual report on usage of the drugs. 

But the data don't reflect the impact of two pending policy changes designed to limit farm use of the drugs and preserve their viability in human medicine. 

FDA is in the process of approving new label changes that will effectively prohibit future usage of such antibiotics for growth promotion, and beginning Jan. 1 all use of medically important antimicrobials will require a veterinarian's oversight. 

According to the FDA data, 97 percent of antibiotics were sold over the counter in 2015, a figure virtually unchanged from 98 percent in 2009, when the sales reporting started. Sales of drugs approved for production purposes fell from 72 percent in 2014 to 71 percent in 2015, but FDA cautioned that the data also include drugs approved for therapeutic purposes. 

Tetracyclines accounted for 71 percent of U.S. sales of medically important antibiotics in 2015, followed by penicillins at 10 percent, macrolides at 6 percent, sulfas and aminoglycosides at 4 percent, lincosamides at 2 percent, and amphenicols, cephalosporins, and fluoroquinolones, all at less than 1 percent. 

 

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Source:  Agri-Marketing

 

 

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