Sacramento, California - In January 2018, livestock owners, veterinarians and consumer advocates came together in support of a new law regulating antibiotic use in livestock in an effort to forestall the development of antimicrobial resistance and promote both animal health and human health.

This law moved the oversight of all medically important (dual purpose antibiotics used for both human and livestock health) under the oversight of a veterinarian when the drug is used in livestock.  It also limited the use of these antibiotics in livestock and funded CDFA to gather critical data needed to help provide guidance to veterinarians with the intent of enabling enhanced stewardship of these critical drugs.  

While data gathering is just getting underway, CDFA recently released two reports that begin to build the data needed by veterinarians as they work to protect animal health now and in the future.  The Antimicrobial Use and Stewardship (AUS) Program Annual Report outlines data collection and stewardship projects currently under way and the Veterinary Feed Directive Report more specifically provides baseline data relative to the use of antibiotics in feed.  Follow this link for more information about the AUS Program.