Chicken industry doing its part in curbing antimicrobial resistance: FDA

Sales of antimicrobials among food-animal producers in the United States have been on the rise, but the chicken industry is showing signs of helping to buck the trend, a Food and Drug Administration official said here at the National Chicken Council’s annual meeting. Dr. Stephen Ostroff, the FDA’s deputy commissioner for foods and veterinary medicine, said data show that sales of antimicrobials among food-animal producers rose 22 percent from 2009 to 2014, including a 4 percent bump from 2013 to 2014. But that doesn’t account for the probable impact of the agency’s guidelines for industry on limiting the use of antibiotics in food animals or the industry’s efforts in doing so.  Those guidelines were first issued in 2013, with the final ruling on them released in June 2015. The guidelines become effective Jan. 1, 2017. Many companies are already following them.