Veterinary Feed Directive Rules | What They Are Not

New rules are on the horizon for cattle producers that will affect how they purchase and distribute medically important antimicrobials in their herds’ food and water.

With the gradual implementation of Veterinary Feed Directive (VFD) rules by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) throughout 2016, new protocols have been established to ensure that everyone involved in the beef production chain, from rancher, feedyard operator, feed producer and distributor to veterinarian, is promoting the judicious use of antimicrobials in food-producing animals. The goal of the strategy is to work with industry stakeholders to protect public health by phasing out the use of medically important antimicrobials in food animals for production purposes like growth enhancement or to improve feed efficiency, and to bring the therapeutic uses of such drugs under the oversight of licensed veterinarians.

VFD rules will not affect injectable antibiotics or antimicrobials. They will only affect medically important drugs that are ingested by food animals.

The new rules will require a veterinarian’s oversight and direction, in the form of a Veterinary Feed Directive (VFD), to purchase a product that contains medically important antimicrobials that are distributed in animal food or water. The FDA considers any antimicrobial that is important for treating human disease as medically important. Antimicrobials used only in animals will not fall under VFD rules.

According to the FDA, antimicrobial drugs include all drugs that work against a variety of microorganisms, such as bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites. An antibiotic drug is effective against bacteria. While all antibiotics are antimicrobials, not all antimicrobials are antibiotics.

Antimicrobial resistance occurs when bacteria or other microbes become resistant to the effects of a drug after being exposed to it.

This means that the drug, and similar drugs, will no longer be effective against those microbes.

The new rules will provide guidelines for which disease the product may be used, and will require a defined duration of use, after which the VFD expires. The FDA considers judicious use to involve accurately identifying bacterial disease that is present or likely to be present, and selecting the suitable antimicrobial drug. A veterinarian’s decision to use a specific approved drug or combination drug is based on factors such as the way the drug acts against the particular bacteria in question, whether it can effectively get to the place of infection, and how long the drug maintains effective levels at the site of infection.

Under the new rules, drugs administered through feed must be used according to the approved labeling. In addition, the extra-label use of approved drugs in animals by or on the lawful order of licensed veterinarians is limited to situations where the health of an animal is threatened, or when suffering or death could result from failure to treat. The FDA believes strongly that sick animals need treatment, and that VFD antimicrobial drugs should remain available for the purposes of treating, controlling or preventing disease in food-producing animals.

By enacting these guidelines and rules for use, the FDA hopes to bring more oversight to protecting public health while ensuring producer access to the drugs that animal agriculture relies on to treat disease and prevent illness. The VFD ultimately places a strong emphasis on the veterinarian/client relationship. Feed-grade antibiotics and antimicrobials are not being phased out. However, the over-the-counter access and guidelines for their use will be changing. The products will be available, but only under a veterinarian’s involvement and direction.

“Veterinary Feed Directive Rules: What They Are Not” is from the February 2016 issue of The Cattleman magazine.