Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Veterinary Medicine published the 2023 Summary Report on Antimicrobials Sold or Distributed for Use in Food-Producing Animals. The 2023 data indicate that U.S. sales and distribution of medically important antimicrobial drugs approved for use in food-producing animals decreased by two percent between 2022 and 2023; this represents a 37 percent decrease in sales since the sales peaked in 2015. The antimicrobial sales data do not necessarily reflect how much of the drugs are actually used in animals, only the volume that is sold.
Read the 2023 Summary Report on Antimicrobials Sold or Distributed for Use in Food-Producing Animals.
In addition, the FDA’s biomass-adjusted 2023 sales and distribution data is now available in the agency’s dashboard: Interactive Summary of Biomass-Adjusted Antimicrobial Sales Data. A biomass denominator adjusts annual antimicrobial sales data to account for the size of the population of a given livestock species in the U.S. potentially being treated with those drugs.
Sales and distribution fluctuations are expected over time. For more information about what readers should consider when analyzing the report, please review the FDA’s Questions and Answers: Summary Report on Antimicrobials Sold or Distributed for Use in Food-Producing Animals.
Full announcement: FDA Releases Annual Summary of Sales and Distribution of Antimicrobials in 2023 for Use in Food-Producing Animals – Biomass-adjusted 2023 sales and distribution data also available.
[Source: FDA 10 October 2024]