California Will Be the First State to Seriously Regulate Antibiotic Use in Livestock

As human beings with (generally) free will and a (decent) grasp on how medicine works, we would think it pretty unwise to take antibiotics every single day as a means of preventing future infections. After all, we know that some bacteria—or actually, most bacteria—in our bodies is good, and that to throw off our natural balance of germs and microbes could be harmful, even fatal. Or worse, we could acclimate bacterial strains to common antibiotics to the point that they're no longer effective. And that's exactly what's been happening.

But when it comes to industrial animal agriculture, antibiotics are distributed widely and freely to animals that doesn't necessarily need them, with little regard for the consequences when it comes to public health. The goal: to grow bigger animals, faster and with less need for individualized medical care, in environments where many cows, chickens, turkeys, or pigs are cramped together in close quarters and disease could be spread easily. A staggering 80 percent of antibiotics in the United States are fed to livestock, not people.

Over the past year, the federal government has grown increasingly concerned about the impacts of this widespread practice. After all, even minor infections can turn lethal without proper treatment, or when prescribed treatments don't work.

But now, California is taking matters into its own hands by becoming the first state to place tight regulations on when and how antibiotics are fed to the animals that we eat. This past Saturday, Governor Jerry Brown signed Senate Bill 27, which will "prohibit the administration of medically important antimicrobial drugs … to livestock unless ordered by a licensed veterinarian through a prescription … and would prohibit the administration of a medically important antimicrobial drug to livestock solely for purposes of promoting weight gain or improving feed efficiency." Additionally, the bill mandates that the Department of Food and Agriculture consult with the Veterinary Medical Board and State Department of Public Health to develop new guidelines regarding the sale and use of these drugs. And if farmers and livestock workers fail to comply, they'll be subject to fines of up to $500 a day.

Although California is taking the lead on this issue, they're merely spearheading a stricter version of initiatives that the Feds have already been working toward. In March, the White House announced that it would be implementing a five-year plan to reduce the threat posed by antibiotic-resistant superbugs that have emerged and grown in prevalence over the last decade. Critics of the plan—which included forming a dedicated task force, increasing funding for research on the issue to $1.2 billion, developing new and improved drugs, and increasing funding to the USDA to reexamine practices within the industry—argued that not enough was being done to ensure a reduction in the staggering amount of antibiotics fed to US livestock.

But in the Golden State, things are taking a turn for the serious.

"SB 27 addresses an urgent public health problem. The science is clear that the overuse of antibiotics in livestock has contributed to the spread of antibiotic resistance and the undermining of decades of life-saving advances in medicine," Governor Brown said in his statement at the signing.

Just hope that the rest of the country follows suit before we all die from invincible strains of strep throat and urinary tract infections.