The Food And Drug Administration believes the frequent use of antibiotics by farmers to help their livestock grow is contributing to the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, CNN reported.
The government agency unveiled a plan on Wednesday that will begin to curb the use of antibiotics in food-producing animals.
"It is important to use these drugs only when medically necessary," the FDA said on its website. "Governments around the world consider antimicrobial-resistant bacteria a major threat to public health."
Antibiotics are used in livestock to prevent disease and to aid growth.
According to CNN, many of the drugs used the food production industry are also used to treat humans when they get sick. According to the FDA, illnesses caused by bacteria are more likely to be fatal if overuse has made the germs resistant to medication.
The initiative aims to phase out the use of these antibiotics that are considered "medically important" for humans. According to CNN, the FDA believes the use of these medical agents in livestock - rather than being used to treating infections in humans - could contribute to the creation of bacteria resistant to those antibiotics, making the drugs less effective in humans.
Under The new FDA policy, pharmaceutical companies are asked to relabel some of their antibiotics; stating that their products can be used for fighting infections, but not for growth purposes, according to The Verge.
However, the change is only voluntary and it's not clear how many pharmaceutical companies the FDA will be able to get on board with the plan, which may cut into their existing profits.
"The FDA is leveraging the cooperation of the pharmaceutical industry to voluntarily make these changes because we believe this approach is the fastest way to achieve our goal," FDA deputy commissioner Michael Taylor said in a statement. "Based on our outreach, we have every reason to believe that animal pharmaceutical companies will support us in this effort."
The Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental advocacy group, is skeptical of the FDA's new guidance.
"[The FDA's policy] is a hollow gesture that does little to tackle a widely recognized threat to human health," Avinash Kar, an NRDC defense attorney, said in a statement.
The NRDC also criticizes the policy for only barring the use of antibiotics to enhance growth, without addressing the use of antibiotics to treat stress or other issues resulting from poor feedlot conditions
Kar said she doesn't think the guidance will be effective as the government agency followed a voluntary approach for more than 35 years, but the use of these drugs on animals has increased.
"There's no reason why voluntary recommendations will make a difference now, especially when FDA's policy covers only some of the many uses of antibiotics on animals that are not sick," she said.
According to CNN, an FDA report released in April showed 81 percent of all the raw ground turkey the agency tested was contaminated with antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria were found in about 69 percent of pork chops, 55 percent of ground beef 39 percent of chicken.
