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.
Dr. Ron Prestage-National Pork Producers Council:
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.
Source : Farmscape