Farmers may soon be banned from using these antibiotics

California could soon be the first state in the country to ban farmers, from using over-the-counter antibiotics in livestock and poultry.

Steve Large explains, what’s at stake. Cattle and poultry farmers in California may soon be blazing a new trail in how they medically treat their animals. Just ask UC Davis veterinarian Michael Payne.

"Livestock producers inside California inside the central valley are the most highly regulated commodities inside the United States," Payne said. 

Payne specializes in livestock pharmaceuticals and is closely watching a new law that could ban California farmers from using over-the-counter anti-biotics in livestock and poultry. Prescription only anti-biotics would become law, as a way to reduce resistance to the anti-biotics in people. It doesn’t matter where or how you use antibiotics. If you use them in children, if you use them in pets, inside livestock, you are going to be promoting some sort of resistance. It’s that old adage you are what you eat and new studies show overuse of anti-biotics on the farm may be going onto store shelves and onto our dinner plates.

State senator Jerry Hill wrote the bill to ban over the counter anti-biotics on farms.