A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released this month urges the Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Agriculture (USDA) to work together to improve data collection and risk assessment for antibiotic-resistant bacteria in food animals. The GAO stated that since its initial 2004 recommendations, the HHS and USDA have collected data separately and that the data does not represent overall antibiotic use in food animals or include the details necessary (such as what animals the antibiotics are used in or the purposes of their use) to analyze trends. The interagency National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System (NARMS) gathers data from food carcasses at slaughter plants, retail meat samples and bacteria from state health departments. The NARMS budget increased 16.4% in fiscal 2011 to $7.8 million. By volume, the two largest-selling antimicrobial drug classes permitted for use in food animals in 2009 were tetracyclines and ionophores. The report also urges the modification of NARMS sampling criteria. The Departments generally agreed with the recommendations.

Source: GAO