The use of antibiotics on farm animals in the United States is declining.Now it is not

This is considered the best thing the United States can do, especially when the pro-business Trump administration is about to take over. But researchers knew in advance that the ban on growth promoters was not enough. They already have an example of why it doesn’t work: A few years ago, the Dutch government noticed that despite the EU’s 2006 ban, the sale of antibiotics to Dutch farms is still increasing.According to a survey conducted by academics working with regulatory agencies, companies that sell ag antibiotics in the Netherlands have already Label changed “Preventive use” of growth promoters to circumvent the new law.

This seems to be what happened in the United States. A method of using antibiotics was made illegal, so producers found a different way. Lance Price, a microbiologist and professor at the George Washington University Milken School of Public Health and founding director of the Antibiotic Resistance Action Center, said: “The use of’therapeutic’ has increased dramatically after the abolition of growth promotion.” “It’s completely similar to what happened in the Netherlands, they just changed their name.”

The new federal data does have a bright spot. The 2020 report shows that of all antibiotics used for agricultural purposes, chicken farming-the most commonly eaten meat in the United States-accounts for only 2% of the drug. This compares with 41% for cattle and pigs, and 12% for turkeys.It represents a Full turnaround For the U.S. chicken industry that started in 2014, Perdue Foods, the fourth largest producer in the U.S., announced Take its entire action Does not contain antibiotics.

“In the United States, only 1% of broiler chickens are produced with what the industry calls’full-spectrum antibiotics’,” Wellington said. “And more than half of the people said’never use antibiotics’. This is incredible. But it means that we are at a standstill in the production of pigs and cattle.”

In 2018, the second year after the ban on growth promoters took effect, the FDA announced that it would launch a five year Plan Further standardize farm antibiotics. But progress is slow. In June, the agency introduced new regulations to reclassify the remaining over-the-counter drugs (small amounts of injection and topical antibiotics) as prescription drugs.

Activists are impatient to let the agency do more.One Researcher’s open letter The announcement made earlier this year, asking the Biden administration to take drastic action, did not elicit any response.Therefore, advocates focus on the smaller changes they think the FDA is reasonable to make: more regulation, especially in How long can antibiotics last In any single animal or group, and more data collection, it is possible to better understand how antibiotics are abused. Annual reports that track the drug resistance rates of bacteria extracted from humans and animals and match them with sales and usage data are routine in the European Union. In the United States, there is no such comprehensive report.

“First of all, if the FDA really did follow the 2017 proposal, we would know more–that is, not only report sales, but the denominator of reported sales can also reflect the size of the animal population,” said Dr. Wei Wo Linga said a senior NRDC official and co-author of the FDA data analysis. “This is what they have been doing in Europe since 2010. The second thing is actually collecting data on antibiotic use at the farm level.”