Livestock Antibiotics Drop Due To Obama Rules Combatting Drug Resistance
Obama-era rules meant to keep farmers from using too many antibiotics seem to be working. According to the Food and Drug Administration, antibiotic sales dropped 33 percent since they went into effect in 2017. That could curb Hoosiers’ resistance to the life-saving drugs.
The rules made it harder for farmers to put large amounts of antibiotics in livestock feed or water without going through a veterinarian. They also kept farmers from using the drugs to fatten up their animals.
Darryl Ragland is a veterinarian at Purdue University’s College of Veterinary Medicine who specializes in swine health. He says the rules give veterinarians more of a say in how these drugs are used.
“At one time, folks could just go to their local farm supply store and buy some of these products and use them,” Ragland says.
Ragland says before only three products were subject to this kind of regulation by the federal government, now all but five are. He says some veterinarians were worried decreasing the drugs would lead to more disease. That’s what some say happened in the 1990s after Denmark passed even stricter rules limiting antibiotics.
“We don’t seem to be experiencing what the folks in Europe experienced when they underwent this process,” Ragland says.
Ragland says since the rules went into effect he’s seen some viruses slip through the cracks in his practice, but for the most part his farmers and their livestock are doing well.
Indiana Environmental reporting is supported by the Environmental Resilience Institute, an Indiana University Grand Challenge project developing Indiana-specific projections and informed responses to problems of environmental change.