The United States Department of Agriculture is considering a move to reduce food safety monitoring by public health veterinarians. Should consumers be worried?
The Food and Drug Administration's most recent annual report on antimicrobial use in agriculture sends a disappointing message: although sales remain down from historic highs, the declines of recent years appear to have been arrested and may even have been reversed. Overall sales of medically important antibiotics for use in food-producing animals rose by 9 percent between 2017 and 2018, with the biggest proportion of that increase coming from use of tetracyclines in swine and cattle.
