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California Is Poised to Enact the Strictest Farm Antibiotics Law in the Country

The pending legislation just needs to pass the governor.

California could become the first state in the country where farm animals are only given human antibiotics if they're actually sick, or at serious risk of getting sick, if a newly-approved bill gets the green light from the governor.

On Sunday, California governor Jerry Brown is expected to make a decision on whether or not to pass the legislation—an amendment to the state's Food and Agricultural code that has already been approved by the state senate and assembly. The legislation follows some of the guidelines laid out by the Food and Drug Administration on the national level, only it goes a step further, and has a lot more teeth.

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Right now, medically-important antibiotics (i.e. antibiotics that we use to treat humans, as opposed to other antibiotics we only use on animals) are widely used in agriculture. The FDA says as much as 80 percent of all antibiotics sold in the US are sold to the agriculture sector. They're used routinely (often mixed directly into feed) to prevent disease and as growth promoters (i.e. to help livestock plump up). The trouble is that when we overuse antibiotics when they're not needed, whether in animals or people, we create an environment that makes it easier for bacteria to become antibiotic resistant.

In 2013, the FDA released guidelines to try to curb our use of human antibiotics in food production. The FDA requested that drug companies voluntarily stop listing medically-important antibiotics as growth promoters. Since the law requires veterinarians to only prescribe antibiotics for their listed use, this would effectively stop growth promotion use. But while all drug companies that would be effected have agreed to comply, the deadline isn't until the end of next year. And anyways it still leaves the door open to use antibiotics as disease prevention, which could still lead to overuse since there doesn't have to be any specific risk of disease in order to administer antibiotics.

But the California legislation would close those loopholes and make it mandatory, not voluntary, to comply. If the law is passed, by January 2018 it will be illegal to use medically-important antibiotics on farm animals in California unless the animal is already sick, is at serious risk of an infection, or needs antibiotics ahead of a surgery or medical procedure. Using antibiotics to help fatten animals up would be flat out prohibited. It's likely governor Brown will sign the bill, since the whole thing was his idea.

Antibiotic advocacy groups are predictably thrilled at the idea. Groups like the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Center for Food Safety were lauding the pending law.

"It is tremendous that California will lead the way on this critical issue for Californians, Americans, and indeed the world, as the FDA fiddles while Rome burns," said Bill Allayaud, the California director of governmental affairs for the Environmental Working Group, in an emailed statement.

And, perhaps less predictably, many food production groups aren't fighting the issue. Spokespeople from California Pork Producers Association and the California Farm Bureau Federation told me they were taking a "neutral position" on the legislation, and the California Poultry Federation actually supports the law--the group's president told the San Francisco Chronicle: "We think it has the flexibility we can work with."

Though California would be leading the way for US regulations, it's actually far behind some other countries, like Denmark, which banned antibiotics as growth hormones back in the 90s. Still, if the law is passed it will set up a framework for other states and hopefully serve as a case study to show that we can have plentiful, healthy food production without putting antibiotic efficacy at risk.