FDA has released new regulations intended to combat antibiotic resistance by curbing the use of medically important antibiotics in livestock production.  The voluntary guidance to drug manufacturers and livestock producers would phase out the use of antimicrobials for growth promotion, currently a common practice in the livestock industry, and a new proposed rule would require a veterinary prescription to administer antibiotics to animals.

The livestock and drug industries have indicated that they plan to comply with the new guidance, which has drawn mixed reactions from advocates of limits on the subtherapeutic use of antibiotics in agriculture (a position NSAC supports).  Some have hailed the new regulations as an important and meaningful first step, while others have criticized them as inadequate and too easily evaded.