What are antibiotics used for in animals?
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Antibiotics are used in food animals to treat clinical disease, to prevent and control common disease events, and to enhance animal growth. The different applications of antibiotics in food animals have been described as therapeutic use, prophylactic use, and subtherapeutic use.
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Antibiotics are one of many tools veterinarians and farmers rely upon to protect animal health. Antibiotic resistance is a serious issue and both human and animal health experts are working to address it. The most common classes of antibiotics used in livestock aren’t used much in people.
Why are antibiotics used in animal production? Antibiotics are medicines useful for controlling and preventing disease in livestock. Proper use can keep animals healthy, control the spread of diseases between herds, help animals gain weight and prevent the spread of diseases from animals to humans.
Antibiotics are naturally occurring, semi-synthetic and synthetic compounds of antimicrobial activity are used in human and veterinary medicine to treat and prevent disease, and for other purposes including growth promotion in food animals.
What are antibiotics and why are they given to animals? An antibiotic is a medication that is used to destroy bacteria that can be the source of infections and diseases. These medications have been used for both human and animal health for decades as prescribed by a doctor (veterinarian or physician).
Antibiotics are added to the animal feed or drinking water of cattle, hogs, poultry and other food-producing animals to help them gain weight faster or use less food to gain weight.
Additionally, antibiotics are sometimes used to make the animals grow faster. In humans, studies have shown that antibiotics raise the risk of weight gain and obesity, as they wipe out beneficial...
The concern about the use of antibiotics in food animals is that this use will create selection pressure leading to resistant bacteria in the animals that can be transferred to humans via consumption of food products from those animals.