Tuesday, January 17, 2017

Antibiotics losing effectiveness

Antibiotics are losing their effectiveness because more bacteria are developing resistance, Dr. Ken Metzger told beef farmers at a recent meeting in Huron County.
He talked about the challenges for treating bacterial diseases and infections and said beef farmers will need to take more care to keep their animals healthy and hope that researchers can find new ways to control bacterial diseases and infections.
What is also apparent is that antibiotics purchased as growth promotants are also losing their effect, yet few farmers run on-farm trials to determine whether it continues to pay to buy them.

More worrisome, it’s the low levels at which they are administered for growth promotion or “disease prevention” that is more likely to give rise to huge populations of bacteria resistant to antibiotics.