Mounting evidence proves that antibiotic overuse in animal agriculture - especially use in healthy animals - poses a significant threat to public health. Keep Antibiotics Working: The Campaign to End Antibiotic Overuse maintains a Document Library of this evidence. Some of the more important studies are highlighted in Key Scientific Evidence. You may also want to read the fact sheet on the latest science.

While public health concerns have focused on antibiotics given to non-sick animals, a related problem is the inappropriate use of critical human medicines to treat sick animals. Fluoroquinolone antibiotics, for example, were used to treat respiratory disease in flocks of poultry. But that use was compromising fluoroquinolones' effectiveness for treating people suffering from severe cases of food poisoning, according to government experts. Public health concerns led the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to ban the use of fluoroquinolones in poultry. For more detailed information, visit Fluoroquinolones: A (slow) success story.

Another case of critical human medicines being used to treat sick animals involves cefquinome, a cattle drug given herd-wide to treat respiratory illness. Unfortunately, such indiscriminate usage threatens the effectiveness of cephalosporins in human medicine, a reason why KAW opposed the approval of cefquinome for use in cattle. Read more at Cefquinome: Unnecessary Risks

In direct contrast to the case of fluoroquinolones, there has been negligible government action to reduce or eliminate the use of antibiotics in healthy animals in the U.S. to date. Antibiotics are given to non-sick animals both to promote faster growth on less feed, and to compensate for stress and deficient sanitation in the crowded conditions under which such animals are raised. Read more about U.S. Government Involvement on the issue of antibiotic use in animal agriculture.

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a serious bacterial infection that is resistant to some of the most important and commonly used antibiotics in human medicine. Most people now know that hospitals are prominent sources of MRSA infections, but fewer people are aware of the risks that animal production carries for MRSA. KAW has researched the links between MRSA and pig farming, which has been demonstrated in both Europe and Canada, and currently calls for research in the United States to determine the extent of the problem here. Read more about MRSA and Animal Agriculture.

The European Experience with antibiotic use in agriculture has differed markedly. The European Union currently bans six classes of antibiotics from being used as growth promoters, while Sweden has banned all antibiotic growth promoters since 1986 and Denmark since the late 1990s. Meat producers continue to thrive in these countries. See our factsheet, Myths and Facts about Denmark's Growth Promoter Ban and Its Implications for the US.

Keep Antibiotics Working opposes the use of antibiotics in healthy animals, especially those important to human medicine. We also believe some antibiotics, such as fluoroquinolones, are simply too important for curing human illness to allow the misuse or overuse in food animals that threatens their effectiveness. Find out Where Other Groups Stand on antibitiotic overuse in agriculture.