The Government Analyst Department is advising veterinarians not to administer cephalosporins as a treatment to food producing animals in order to preserve the effectiveness of this drug for treating disease in humans.
According to a press release, the advisory stems from a US Food and Drug Administration prohibition order on the use of this drug as a veterinary drug treatment on food producing animals. “The order prohibits certain uses of the cephalosporins (excluding Cephapirin) Class of antimicrobial drugs in cattle, swine, chickens and turkeys,” the release said, adding that “Prohibiting these uses is intended to reduce the risk of Cephalosporin resistance in certain bacterial pathogens.”
In its order, the US FDA is prohibiting what are called “extra label” or unapproved uses of cephalosporins in
