Livestock Antibiotics Move to Prescription-Only

Livestock Antibiotics Move to Prescription-Only

Haylie Shipp
Haylie Shipp
With your Southeast Regional Ag News, I’m Haylie Shipp. This is the Ag Information Network.

Farmers and ranchers will soon need a prescription for livestock antibiotics. The change goes into effect on June 11. Ron Gill at Texas A&M says it's important to prepare now….

“Make sure you have the products on hand that you need. You’ll have to work with a veterinarian and have what we call a veterinarian-client/patient relationship, so he’ll feel comfortable prescribing antibiotics to you. And so that’ll be the biggest difference, you can’t just walk into a store and purchase it.”

Speaking of a VCPR, there are some changes with that too. Starting on February 21, you will no longer be able to use telemedicine to establish that relationship. The FDA had allowed that because of the pandemic…

“So you will have to have a one-on-one relationship with a veterinarian, not just some access over the internet or phone call. I do think there will be the ability to use what I’d call telemedicine where you can send something to your veterinarian over the phone, let him look at it, and he can prescribe something. But, once again, it has to be done under that VCPR framework.”

Gill expects it to take a little while for everyone to come to terms with the changes.

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