Consumers today have a lot of questions about antibiotic resistance and how it might be linked to livestock farming. But according to Michelle Sprague, a veterinarian with Audubon Manning Veterinary Clinic (AMVC) Management Services, there has been no evidence of a direct link between antibiotic use in livestock and resistance seen in human medicine.

"It’s not a link that’s quite as easily drawn as people make it out to be," Sprague said. "Eating meat from an animal that’s been treated with an antibiotic does not infer antibiotic resistance in humans because the antibiotic is out of the animal’s system before it’s slaughtered, by law, with observance of withdrawal times."

However, experts agree that those in the human medical community and the livestock industry need to work together to...