Monitoring Antimicrobial Use in Livestock Production: Learning from California, Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment

Abstract

Antimicrobial overuse in livestock production may contribute to the declining efficacy of our most important medical treatments. California’s experiment is a step in the right direction,but also shows how better oversight is needed.

Antimicrobials, medicines such as antibiotics that we use to treat bacterial infections, are one of the key twentieth century public health innovations which have led to profound improvements in the length and quality of human lives. However, frequent and excessive antimicrobial usage causes pathogens to become resistant, rendering these drugs useless and imposing enormous costs on society. In the U.S. alone, 2.8 million antimicrobial-resistant infections are contracted every year, causing 35,000 deaths and $55 billion in economic losses.