Medicated feed topic of talk

STAFF REPORT

Dr. John Wenzel, a veterinarian with the New Mexico State University Extension Office, gave a presentation on the Veterinary Feed Directive, which is, according to him, a change that is incurred on the way medicated feed is used.

Wenzel explained that the Food and Drug Administration, not sufficiently convinced that the agriculture industry was using antibiotics judiciously, saw the need for oversight.

“They said that what they wanted to do is express their position that medically important antibiotics labeled for continuous use for undefined durations of use is not consistent with judicious use principles,” Wenzel said. “What ended up happening, is they set out some directives that this practice had to change.”

According to Wenzel, there were originally five designated reasons that livestock were fed antibiotics. Two of those reasons were feed efficiency and promotion of growth, both of which he referred to as “performance enhancers,” and they were both ruled no longer valid.

The only remaining reasons livestock are to be fed antibiotics, he said, are prevention, control, and treatment of disease.

Another restriction, which Wenzel said was the driving force behind the VFD, was of “extralabel drug use.” This was described in his presentation as “actual use or intended use of a drug in an animal in a manner that is not in accordance with the approved labeling.”

“That means you cannot vary in any form or manner from what medication states on its label, and if you do that, you’re in violation of law,” he said.

VFD drugs, according to Wenzel, restrict veterinarians from prescribing any amount of medicated feed than that which is stated on the label.

He also said that, in order to obtain feed prescriptions for livestock, a valid veterinarian-client-patient relationship, or VCPR, must be in place, which means that the veterinarian “must be sufficiently acquainted with an animal being treated. If you don’t have a veterinarian you work with, you’d better get one.”

“If you have a sick calf, and you just call up the veterinarian on the phone for him to give you medicine, the answer is going to be no, because if they don’t have an established VCPR, then they get sued, and that’s what those lawyers are banking on.”

The VFD, Wenzel said, established expiration dates for medicated feed, beyond which livestock cannot legally be fed that feed.

There is also, according to Wenzel, a duration of use, which is how long the feed can be fed to a class of animals.

He said that, if a drug has an expiration date of 45 days, but a duration of use of 21 days, owners must strategically plan their feedings within the expiration date so that they do not exceed the duration of use.