Monday, July 14, 2014

Health Canada restricts use of antibiotics for growth in livestock

In an effort to curb drug-resistant superbugs, Health Canada is restricting the use of antibiotics in livestock. Producers will no longer be allowed to continuously feed animals low-level doses as a way to promote growth. Dr. Trisha Dowling, a pharmacologist with the Western College of Veterinary Medicine, says penicillin and tetracycline have long been fed to livestock in order to reduce the workload of animals' immune systems, thereby causing them to grow faster using less feed. She says in many cases, products specifically marketed as growth-promotants are older drugs that have fallen out of use in humans as bacteria have developed resistance. The rules do still allow in-feed antibiotics as a preventative measure against disease...more

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

How will this be enforced ?. Sounds like a public relations thing to me.