Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2015 Apr;62 Suppl 1(Suppl 1):10-21.
doi: 10.1111/zph.12193.

Anti-microbial Use in Animals: How to Assess the Trade-offs

J Rushton  1
Affiliations

Anti-microbial Use in Animals: How to Assess the Trade-offs

J Rushton. Zoonoses Public Health. 2015 Apr.

Abstract

Antimicrobials are widely used in preventive and curative medicine in animals. Benefits from curative use are clear - it allows sick animals to be healthy with a gain in human welfare. The case for preventive use of antimicrobials is less clear cut with debates on the value of antimicrobials as growth promoters in the intensive livestock industries. The possible benefits from the use of antimicrobials need to be balanced against their cost and the increased risk of emergence of resistance due to their use in animals. The study examines the importance of animals in society and how the role and management of animals is changing including the use of antimicrobials. It proposes an economic framework to assess the trade-offs of anti-microbial use and examines the current level of data collection and analysis of these trade-offs. An exploratory review identifies a number of weaknesses. Rarely are we consistent in the frameworks applied to the economic assessment anti-microbial use in animals, which may well be due to gaps in data or the prejudices of the analysts. There is a need for more careful data collection that would allow information on (i) which species and production systems antimicrobials are used in, (ii) what active substance of antimicrobials and the application method and (iii) what dosage rates. The species need to include companion animals as well as the farmed animals as it is still not known how important direct versus indirect spread of resistance to humans is. In addition, research is needed on pricing antimicrobials used in animals to ensure that prices reflect production and marketing costs, the fixed costs of anti-microbial development and the externalities of resistance emergence. Overall, much work is needed to provide greater guidance to policy, and such work should be informed by rigorous data collection and analysis systems.

Keywords: Antibiotics; economics; public and private goods; trade-offs.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1
Global livestock units by species (FAO, data author analysis)
Fig 2
Fig 2
Disease Loss – Expenditure Frontier (adapted from Mclnerney, 1996)
Fig 3
Fig 3
Proposed economic framework to assess an animal health problem such as the use of antimicrobials in animals.
Fig 4
Fig 4
Cost-benefit model for livestock disease control with fixed costs (adapted fromTisdell, 2009)
Fig 5
Fig 5
Institutional analysis and development framework (modified from Ostrom, 2010)
Fig 6
Fig 6
Elements required for building a sound economic assessment of One Health and welfare problems.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Acar JF, Moulin G, Page SW. Pastoret PP. Antimicrobial resistance in animal and public health: introduction and classification of antimicrobial agents. Rev. Sci. Tech. 2012;31(1):15–21. - PubMed
    1. Castanon JIR. History of the use of antibiotic as growth promoters in European poultry feeds. Poult. Sci. 2007;86(11):2466–2471. - PubMed
    1. Chee-Sanford JC, Aminov RI, Krapac IJ, Garrigues-Jeanjean N. Mackie RI. Occurrence and diversity of tetracycline resistance genes in lagoons and groundwater underlying two swine production facilities. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 2001;67(4):1494–1502. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Codex Alimentarius. Guidelines for Risk Analysis of Foodborne Antimicrobial Resistance (CAC/GL 77–2011) Rome, Italy: Codex Alimentarius; 2011. - PubMed
    1. Cogliani C, Goossens H. Greko C. Restricting Antimicrobial Use in Food Animals: Lessons from Europe. Banning nonessential antibiotic uses in food animals is intended to reduce pools of resistance genes. Microbe. 2011;6(6):274–279.

Publication types