The president of the National Pork Producers Council says the U.S. Pork Industry is on side with regulatory changes to antibiotic use in pork production.
By the end of 2016 U.S. pork producers will be required to discontinue the use for growth promotion of antibiotics in classes used in human medicine and antibiotics in classes in human medicine used for therapeutic purposes in the pork industry must be done with veterinary oversight.
Dr. Ron Prestage, president of the National Pork Producers Council, told those on hand for World Pork Expo the pork industry supports both of those directives.
First of all, I want to point out that we recognized a very long time ago that the prudent use of antibiotics in pork production was a very important issue that would require appropriate decisions being made by producers.
All the way back to 1999, for what has evolved into the PQA Plus Program, NPPC has recommended and educated producers on making sure they had oversight and input from veterinarians to make sure they were making the right choices and using the antibiotics appropriately, appropriate record keeping, making sure that there was a veterinary client patient relationship in place to make sure that those decisions were being made in a defensible way because, even though people talk about the antibiotics, the real issue is antibiotic resistance.
If you’re not using antibiotics appropriately, you have the potential of contributing to an antibiotic resistance problem.
As a husband and a brother and a son and a father myself, it’s important to me and to my family that antibiotics are effective for use in infections in people but antibiotics are also a necessary tool for us to use in animal production morally and ethically to take care properly of those animals that are in our care.
Dr. Prestage views these regulatory changes as an opportunity for the pork industry to demonstrate its commitment to the prudent use of antibiotics.
