CattleReview: September–October 2021

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) limits the ability to prevent and treat infection, making it one of the foremost threats to human and animal health. Animal agriculture's use of antibiotics in food animals is an important factor in AMR. Therefore, policies to reduce antibiotic use and combat AMR in animal agriculture in the United States (US) have been put in place or are being developed. One key to the success of these policies is understanding how veterinarians treating dairy cattle perceive the scale of antibiotic use, the threat of AMR and the utility of antibiotic use policies. The authors of this study by Padda et al (2021) (Preventive Veterinary Medicinehttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.prevetmed.2021.105428) interviewed dairy veterinarians in New York State and conducted an iterative thematic analysis of their responses, through which five themes were identified: 1. veterinarians' views of the frequency and reasons for antibiotic misuse; 2. their ideas on reducing antibiotic use; 3. perceptions of AMR within the dairy industry; 4. view of organic farming and how it relates to animal welfare; and 5. the impact of consumers' beliefs on the dairy industry.