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Access to Antimicrobials Key to Animal Welfare
Dr. George Charbonneau - South West Ontario Veterinary Services

Farmscape for April 19, 2018

An Associate Veterinarian with Southwest Ontario Veterinary Services says the ability to access antimicrobials for the prevention and treatment of disease in livestock is critical to maintaining animal welfare.
In an effort to help reduce the potential for the development of antimicrobial resistance the Government of Canada is tightening regulations governing the use of antibiotics in livestock production, including new requirements for veterinary oversight in the administration of medically important antimicrobials and elimination of the use of antimicrobials as growth promotants.
Dr. George Charbonneau, an Associate Veterinarian with Southwest Ontario Veterinary Services, says  eliminating the use of antimicrobials as growth promoters has met little resistance.

Clip-Dr. George Charbonneau-Southwest Ontario Veterinary Services:
In most of the developed nations we've had this discussion over the last several years about whether it's appropriate to use antimicrobials as growth promotants to enhance growth or feed efficiency.
I think the conclusion has been that, although there's a benefit and you can't always identify all of the risks in terms of resistance, there's been little pushback to say that we need to stop using antimicrobials as growth promoters.
The big battlefield, or where we're into most of our issues today would be how far do we go in controlling that use?
There's a number of groups that are concerned about our use as a preventive or a control agent.
I can understand that there's some concern that way but we, as producers and veterinarians, feel that we need to have the flexibility under veterinary supervision to be able to use those products when it's appropriate, especially to control animal suffering.
It's important to us that, if animals are suffering, that we're able to use all of the tools necessary in a prudent way to minimize that suffering.
This is where the ability of producers to have access to those tools to care for the pigs that are under our care is important.

Dr. Charbonneau says. like with humans, if animals get disease or have pain there will be suffering.
For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.


       *Farmscape is a presentation of Sask Pork and Manitoba Pork

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