Inappropriate Use of Antibiotics in Livestock Is Common

A sizeable proportion of the antibiotics produced worldwide is administered to livestock, either to prevent local epidemics or to treat illness. Despite increasing attention to antimicrobial resistance in farm animals and transmission of resistant pathogens from these animals to humans (JW Infect Dis May 2 2012), indications for and administration of antimicrobials in veterinary medicine have rarely been examined.

Researchers in Belgium recently published a prospective investigation of antibiotic use in veal calves from birth to slaughter (total, 5853 animals in 15 herds, studied for a mean of 196 days). Five of these herds (2334 animals) were included only in the group-treatment analyses because of unreliable individual treatment records. O…