There's good news and bad news in the antibiotic dilemma

“Consumers care about this issue,” says Angie Siemens, vice president of food safety, quality and regulatory at Cargill. “You will continue to see the marketplace move, no matter what the science is, no matter what the metrics are, no matter what the regulations are.”  Siemens participated in a NIAA antibiotics roundtable last summer that included stakeholders from across the spectrum. She sensed an understanding among all stakeholders that there is a need to figure out how to maintain antibiotic use as a viable solution for both human and food animal health care.“I do think we walked away with a collaboration across stakeholders,” Siemens says. “Different stakeholders have different ideas about what it means to have antibiotic stewardship, how impactful animal agriculture is on human medicine. What we did have was the ability to sit down and have a conversation and try to understand how we can work together and do it consistent with a One Health Goal. What we don’t share is how we’re going to get there.”