Chicken production accounted for only three percent of domestic sales and distribution of medically important antibiotics approved for use in food-producing animals for 2021, according to a new report this week from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Each year, every sponsor of an approved or conditionally approved animal drug application containing an antimicrobial active ingredient must report to the FDA the amount of each such ingredient in these drug products sold or distributed for use in food-producing animals. FDA summarizes this information and makes it available to the public in annual summary reports.
This reporting requirement was enacted by Congress in 2008 to assist FDA in its continuing analysis of the interactions, efficacy, and safety of antimicrobials approved for use in both humans and food-producing animals.
FDA this week released its 2021 Summary Report, which presents the sales and distribution data for actively marketed antimicrobial drugs approved for use in food-producing animals by drug class, medical importance, route of administration, indication, and dispensing status, as well as species-specific estimates, of sales and distribution from 2012 through 2021.
According to the report, domestic sales and distribution of medically important antimicrobials approved for use in food-producing animals:
- decreased by less than one percent from 2020 through 2021
- decreased by 38 percent from 2015 (the year of peak sales) through 2021
- decreased by 33 percent from 2012 through 2021
- Tetracyclines, which represent the largest volume of these domestic sales (3,916,864 kg in 2021), decreased by one percent from 2020 through 2021. Penicillins decreased by 19 percent, macrolides and lincosamides each increased by 21 percent
The domestic sales and distribution of medically important antimicrobials approved for use in food-producing animals for 2021 included an estimated 41 percent intended for use in cattle, 42 percent intended for use in swine, 11 percent intended for use in turkeys, three percent intended for use in chickens, and an estimated three percent intended for use in other species/unknown.
The U.S. Poultry & Egg Association this week also released a study quantifying the U.S. poultry industry’s on-farm antibiotic use. Under the research direction of Dr. Randall Singer, DVM, PhD, of Mindwalk Consulting Group, LLC, the report represents a nine-year set of data collected from 2013 to 2021 for U.S. broiler chickens and turkeys and represents a six-year set of data collected from 2016 to 2021 for layers.
Key changes among broilers over the 2013-2021 period:
- Broiler chickens receiving antibiotics in the hatchery decreased from 90 percent (2013) to zero percent (2021)
- Medically important in-feed antibiotic use in broiler chickens decreased substantially: there was no reported in-feed tetracycline use in 2020 or 2021, and virginiamycin use decreased more than 97 percent over the nine-year period
- Medically important water-soluble antibiotic use in broiler chickens decreased substantially from 2013-2017 and then stabilized or decreased slightly from 2017-2021:
- penicillin use decreased by more than 75 percent from peak in 2015
- lincomycin use decreased by more than 82 percent from peak in 2015
- tetracycline use decreased by more than 92 percent since 2013
- sulfonamide use decreased by 98 percent since 2013
- There was a documented shift to the use of antibiotics that are not considered medically important to humans (e.g., avilamycin and bacitracin)
