I did a consultation today about a dog that illustrates some of the practical challenges to reducing antibiotic use. It was an older dog with a test result that could be consistent with an infectious disease, but one that is also common in healthy animals. The signs of illness that the dog had would have
White House antibiotic resistance action plan
The White House has released a "National Action Plan for Combating Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria". This follows on the heels of "Executive Order 13676: Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria" which was issued by President Barack Obama on September 18, 2014, along with the "National Strategy for Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria" presented by the President’s Council
Antibiotics in animals: ACVIM consensus statement
Every year, the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine (ACVIM) commissions "consensus statements" on specific topics. They’re developed by an expert panel, put up for review by ACVIM members (board certified veterinary internal medicine specialists), and published in the Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine.
Hot off the (electronic) press is the 2015 ACVIM Consensus
Canadian human antimicrobial use report, 2012/2013
The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) has released the 2012/2013 Human Antimicrobial Drug Use Report.
Why write about this on a site dedicated to zoonotic diseases and diseases of animals? For a few different reasons, actually. One is that we have to realize that antibiotics (and bacteria) don’t care if drugs are used
More bad news on the MRSP front
Well, "news" perhaps isn’t the best description since we’ve been seeing it for a while, but a paper in an upcoming edition of the Journal of Clinical Microbiology (Gold et al. 2014) entitled "Amikacin resistance in Staphylococcus pseudintermedius isolated from dogs" provides published support for the trend we’ve been seeing.
Staphylococcus pseudintermedius is
Cry me a river…crackdown on Angels’ Eyes
Finally.
While having nothing to do with my previous rants on the topic, the FDA has issued warning letters to the manufacturers of Angels’ Eyes and similar products that are vaguely disguised antibiotics sold for purely cosmetic reasons, and without a veterinary prescription. These products have been widely available to decrease tear staining (hardly
FDA releases 2011 antimicrobial resistance data
The US Food and Drug Administration has released the 2011 NARMS (National Antimicrobial Resistances Monitoring System) executive report. It’s a good-news/bad-news outcome, which may be as good as can be expected, but at least there’s some good news.
Here are some areas that were highlighted by the FDA.
- Eighty-five percent of non-typhoidal Salmonella collected from
Guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of pyoderma in dogs
Clinical guidelines are fairly new (and limited) in veterinary medicine, although they’re widespread in human medicine. Following up on recent guidelines for diagnosis of treatment of urinary tract infections in dogs and cats, a working group from the International Society for Companion Animal Infectious Diseases (ISCAID) has completed guidelines for the treatment of a
“Angels’ eyes”…and this is a good idea because…?
Antibiotic resistance is a big deal. Lots of people and animals die because of it every year. It costs the healthcare systems (human and veterinary) tremendous amounts of money and it’s not getting better.
It’s been clear for years that we have to do a better job of using antibiotics responsibly, in both animals and
The “criticall important antibiotic” debate
Last week, I mentioned the antibiotic use plenary session at the ASM-ESCMID conference on methicillin-resistant staphylococci in animals. The session was designed to discuss the use of "critically important antibiotics" in companion animals – drugs like carbapenems (imipenem, meropenem) and vancomycin, which are used for treating serious multidrug-resistant infections in people as well. After