The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has recently released antibiotic guidelines for food animals. However, these guidelines are not enforceable in any way and are entirely voluntary and thus, useless when it comes to safeguarding human and animal health.

The reasons to limit antibiotics are many. We see antibiotic resistant bacteria in our supermarket food, sickening factory farm workers and even in pests that reside in the farms. We also know that about 80% of US antibiotics now go to livestock. And what happens when antibiotic misuse leads to the drugs being useless to cure human illness?  

Tell the FDA to get to work: create antibiotic regulation for livestock now!

Photo: Joost J. Bakker IJMuiden via Flickr