Antimicrobial use monitoring

A useful tool, or a disciplinary stick?

Abstract

Antimicrobial use in livestock is under increasing scrutiny by various regulatory, industry, and consumer groups. It is likely that in the future, production systems will be required to document antimicrobial use in order to have access to some supply chains. Regardless of from what direction this requirement comes, the veterinarian is in a unique position to help guide the formation and the application of this "documentation". There are clearly many ways to define, measure, and document antimicrobial use. This project focuses on differentiating measures that would be useful tools for managing antimicrobial use for infectious disease from those that are suitable only for monitoring macrotrends related to use reduction.