You guessed it; I can’t let sleeping dogs lie.

The last blog stirred up a lot of comments, some not so complimentary, and also a couple of private emails and phone calls.

First of all my response to the comment that I “haven’t stepped in enough cow turds to know how black hide cattle perform….”

I grew up in rural Nebraska, I rode horses in snow storms looking for newborn black calves, I scrubbed the dairy barn’s walls before we were inspected, I mowed hay and hauled bales so I would have enough cash for a Friday night date after our football game.

I stepped on plenty enough cow turds to know I wanted to do something different in my adult life so I went on to school in the city. And now I blog, mostly in support of animal agriculture but I sometimes raise questions that ruffle feathers.

The folks at the Animal Health Institute were kind enough to give me a call and explain their quote that I cited in the last blog. I think we politely agreed to disagree and remain friends.

Here is the point I was trying to make about antibiotic sales as reported annually by the FDA starting with 1999 data: Every single year, antibiotic sales for use in animals have increased. Every year.

I get it that the size of our herds and flocks may increase, but every year?

I get it that the report is for sales, not use, but are people letting those antibiotics accumulate on shelves every year?

I get it that the report is for sales in kilograms and not about intended use or dosing, but those sales reported in kilograms are going up every year.

I get it that tetracyclines are by far the leading antibiotic sold for use in animals and are also used to a very minor extent in human medicine; but I also get it that tetracyclines can contribute in a larger fashion to the development of life-threatening antibiotic resistant pathogens that can threaten my life. Check out the science before you dispute that statement.

I also get it that in addition to a rise in tetracycline sales, sales of penicillin and macrolides both went up in 2015, and those antibiotics are critical to human health.

So I repeat my simple question, and that is; if more and more retailers and restaurants are claiming to have pork and poultry meats that were raised without antibiotics, why are the sales numbers going up……every year?

William James wrote a good blog last week on “lumpers vs splitter.” I am also a lumper and one of my favorite notions and directives to those splitters working with me was: don’t let perfect get in the way of better. Lord knows I am not perfect, but I am always trying to make things better.

And I think the “agvocates”(thanks, Greg Gunthorp, for that word), had better hope and pray that we see a decrease in antibiotic sales reported for 2016 or the other shoe is going to drop big time and you all are going to pay the price.

BTW, don’t shoot the messenger, just clean up your messaging. Please.

Where have all the antibiotics gone?

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