Obama administration officials announced a final version of the FDA’s veterinary-feed directive at a Forum on Antibiotics Stewardship at the White House today. The rule, an update of a 2000 directive, was proposed in December 2013 as the agency began steps to require veterinary approval for use of medically important antibiotics to treat or prevent disease in food animals. The FDA is halfway through a voluntary phase-out of the use of medically important antimicrobials as growth promotants in livestock. The administration said the new rule would help assure that vital antibiotics are used only under supervision by a veterinarian.
The feed directive is “an important piece of FDA’s overall strategy to promote the judicious use of medically important antibiotics in food-producing animals,” said the White House. It said 10 organizations, including drugmakers Elanco, Merck and Zoetis, “have committed to work with veterinarians and feed mill operators to ensure swift and seamless adoption” of FDA’s feed rule. In addition, “they are investing in vaccines, best management practices, on-farm hygiene and proper nutritional innovations that will benefit animal health while lessening the reliance on traditional antibiotics.”
“This is a complicated problem,” said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. “Agriculture is going to be part of the solution.”
When it published the proposal, the FDA said the update would improve the efficiency of the veterinary feed directive, which covers “new animal drugs intended for use in or on animal feed which are limited to use under the professional supervision of a licensed veterinarian in the course of the veterinarian’s professional practice.”
The administration said medical groups would encourage careful use of antibiotics in hospitals.
Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers on Disease Control and Prevention, said the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria was the most important infectious disease of modern times. An estimated 23,000 Americans die each year of drug-resistant bacteria.
“California poultry giant Foster Farms has joined the flock of meat companies eschewing the use of antibiotics, pledging to eliminate all those used to combat infection in humans,” the Los Angeles Times reports. “The company’s promise comes ahead of Tuesday’s White House forum on the use of antibiotics, and amid rising concern that use of the drugs to raise livestock has aided the proliferation of resistant strains of bacteria among humans.”