What does it mean to use an antibiotic as a growth promoter

What does it mean to use an antibiotic as a growth promoter in farm animals?

Solution

1. Antibiotic growth promoter is used to describe any medicine that destroys or inhibits bacteria and is administered at a low, sub therapeutic dose. With increase in animal farming the use of antibiotics for growth promotion has also increased. Livestock producers routinely give antibiotics to animals to make them grow faster or help them survive crowded, stressful, and unsanitary conditions. Microbes reduce the yield of farmed food animals and in order to control this these agents when used in sub-therapeutic dose proves to be helpful. The use of growth-promoters is largely a problem of intensive farming methods and the problems caused by their use are largely those of developed rather than developing countries. When these drugs are overused in humans or animals, some bacteria become antibiotic-resistant, threatening the future effectiveness of these medicines.

The blind use of theses antibiotics is a matter of concern globally because some of the drugs such as penicillin, tetracycline etc which forms a part of human medicine enters human food chain. This may result in antibiotic resistance in animals and humans over a time.

2. FDA is taking measures to promote the judicious use of medically important antimicrobial drugs in food animals. The main aim of the strategy is to work with industry to protect public health and to help phase out the use of medically important antimicrobials in food animals for production purposes (e.g., to enhance growth or improve feed efficiency), and to bring the therapeutic uses of such drugs (to treat, control, or prevent specific diseases) under the oversight of licensed veterinarians.

In this respect the document in Guidance #213 of FDA, provides guidance for drug companies to voluntarily revise the FDA-approved labeled use conditions to (a) remove the use of antimicrobial drugs for production purposes; (b) add, where appropriate, scientifically-supported disease treatment, control or prevention uses; and (c) change the marketing status from over-the-counter to Veterinary Feed Directive for drugs administered through feed or to prescription status for drugs administered through water in order to provide for veterinary oversight or consultation.

In order to ensure that the antimicrobial agents are not used as growth promoters by the animal breeders, FDA takes the following steps : First, once product labeling is voluntarily changed, it will be a violation of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to use these products in feed for production purposes. Second, FDA plans to transition the OTC drug to one taht will require prescription by the veterinarian to obtain theses products. FDA believes that the judicious use of medically important antimicrobial drugs intended for use in food-producing animals should involve the oversight of licensed veterinarians given the importance of their scientific and clinical training and knowledge.

3. As the antibiotics are used in large quantity for promoting growth in animals, there have been concerns about antimicrobial resistance. Frequent use of antibiotics leads to increasing resistance in enteric bacteria that can infect people or transfer their resistance to other pathogenic bacteria. The increased resistance may result in slow recovery, high cost and limited treatment options if a person encounters multi drug resistance bacteria. The concerns especially involve resistance against penicillin and tetracycline because they are used in human medicine as well .

4. The use of antibiotic in farm animals should be restricted only for treatment of diseases in the animal rather than their illegal use for promoting growth. The risk of these antibiotics entering in the food chain of human may result in severe consequences thereby resulting in increased diseases. Also the unnecessary burden of high doses may prove lethal to the animals.