And here we are at the threshold of the New Year.
It is truly wonderful to make it another year and a pleasure to be writing for you. I just want to pass on a word of caution to everyone, if you have left over feed with medically important antibiotics in it; you now need a Veterinary Feed Directive from your veterinarian in order to feed it up.
If you do not, you will not be compliant with the new federal law about medically important antibiotics and there juris prudent use.
This all came about over 20 years ago, when we had big lobbyists want to not let any antibiotics be used for animals in any faucet.
The veterinarians have been working on this compromise for the last 20 years. The original thought was that antibiotics are causing super infections in people and therefore, we should not use any in animals. In other words, those of us in agriculture were causing the super infections in people.
The whole medical industry has had to look at itself and rethink how to use antibiotics. And I must say the way we use antibiotics has changed since I have been out of veterinary school.
Plus, I have never been in favor of mass dosing antibiotics to any group of cattle or animals. But, in some instances it is the only way to stop an outbreak. With the removal of certain label claims; i.e. growth promotion, feed efficiency and others it gives us a true way to only use these drugs for the prevention and treatment of disease. These drugs should only be used for the prevention and treatment of disease.
They have found antibiotics in the air, down the road from feed yards. And by putting these antibiotics under the supervision of veterinarians, I believe we can help reduce resistance.
We do want to minimize our contribution to resistance in bacteria. No one wants to hear or see a person die just because they have an infection that is resistant to all antibiotics. And I do have a friend that has lost a leg due to a resistant Staph infection.
We all need to work together and help this situation out. The least amount of resistant bacteria we find the better.
What drugs are not affected by the VFD?
Drugs that are not medically important (medically important antimicrobials are those that are of therapeutic importance in human medicine and there is a risk of microbial resistance development if they are used in an injudicious manner).
Ionophores (monensin, lasalocid, etc.) • Bacitracin (BMD, bacitracin zinc) • Bambermycins • Carbadox
Drugs that are not antimicrobials, for example:
Anthelmentics: Fenbendazole, Ivermectin
Beta agonists: Ractopamine, Zilpaterol
Coccidiostats: Clopidol, Decoquinate, Diclazuril
