Some have argued that there should be new restrictions as to how much or even if veterinarians can prescribe antibiotics to food animals, out of fear that humans are developing a resistance to these antibiotics and that our bodies are being made susceptible to stronger bacteria.

It’s the job of veterinarians to protect both humans and animals and to make decisions based on the science surrounding all sides of the issue. And the science, according to much of our research, has shown mixed results as to whether such a ban would improve human health. On the other hand, aside from damaging animal health, there’s a large amount of information that indicates a ban would actually cause more harm than good to human health.

Additionally, regulatory bodies evaluate antibiotics used in food animals as stringently, and often more, than human antibiotics. Each food animal antibiotic undergoes an assessment for human, environmental and animal safety as a part of the evaluation review by FDA. And there are several public and private monitoring and surveillance systems that monitor for the emergence of antibiotic resistance.

Here’s something to think about: if veterinarians have limited tools to keep our food animals healthy (i.e. the antibiotics) and thus our food safe, we’re going to have a really hard time meeting the demands for meats and animal products such as eggs and milk. We’ve got roughly 303.8 million people in the US and 6.67 billion people in the world who are in need of a safe and healthy food supply. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has said that food production would have to grow by 50 percent by 2030 to stave off starvation. The United States is a major producer of food for people all around the world.

How will we meet these demands, keep our food safe and feed people worldwide if these tools are taken away?