The farmer-funded National Pork Board “will use an online marketing campaign to counter a critical television documentary on antibiotics use in livestock,” says Reuters. The paid search engine optimization (SEO) initiative will point consumers to livestock industry Web sites that defend the use of antibiotics in livestock. Reuters says a NPB official disclosed the campaign in an email ahead of a public television program, “The Trouble with Antibiotics.” An SEO “is a widely employed marketing tactic that aims to get a website to show up higher in a search engine’s results for particular search terms,” said Reuters.
The Pork Board is funded by a “checkoff” of 40 cents per $100 of value when pigs are sold or when pigs or pork products are imported.
Drugmakers say they are cooperating in an FDA request to phase-out over three years the use of medically important antibiotics to promote growth of hogs, cattle, poultry and other food animals and to require veterinary approval in the future for use of the drugs to prevent, control or treat disease. FDA is taking the step, among other initiatives, to preserve the effectiveness of the medicines in threating disease in humans. The major use of antibiotics in the United States is in livestock.