A coalition of 65 health, consumer, environmental, farming, and animal welfare organizations filed a formal citizen's petition with the FDA in mid-June 2026, demanding the agency withdraw approval for the routine use of medically important antibiotics in livestock when no disease has been diagnosed.
The petition targets a practice that is common across U.S. beef, pork, and poultry production: administering antibiotics through feed and water to healthy animals to prevent the spread of disease in crowded conditions. The FDA banned antibiotics for growth promotion in livestock in 2017, but it still permits their use for disease prevention in animals that are not sick — the practice this petition targets.
The consequences, petitioners argue, are measured in American lives. According to the CDC, antibiotic-resistant bacteria — including those that move from livestock into the broader environment through food, air, and water — contribute to approximately 35,000 deaths and 2.8 million infections in the United States every year.
Why This Matters
Antibiotics are the foundation of modern medicine. They enable surgical procedures, cancer chemotherapy, organ transplants, and the treatment of pneumonia, urinary tract infections, and sepsis. When bacteria develop resistance to antibiotics — a process accelerated by any unnecessary antibiotic use, including in animals — infections that were once easily treated become difficult, expensive, and sometimes fatal to manage.
As Consumer Reports senior scientist Michael Hansen, PhD, said in the petition's press release from Earthjustice: "Antibiotics are still being used in livestock as a matter of routine rather than to treat diagnosed diseases — fueling a resistance crisis that puts our health at risk. The FDA has both the tools and the obligation to act."
The petition does not seek to ban antibiotics in livestock. It specifically affirms the need for antibiotics when animals are clinically ill. What it targets is the preventive administration of medically important antibiotics to animals that are healthy — a practice the petitioners argue is both unnecessary and harmful.
What We Know So Far
According to the Earthjustice petition announcement and Food Safety Magazine's coverage, approximately 34 million pounds of medically important antibiotics are used annually in U.S. livestock — the vast majority of all medically important antibiotic sales in the country. An estimated two-thirds of all medically important antibiotics sold in the United States are sold for use in food-producing animals, not in humans.
Antibiotic use in livestock declined after the FDA's 2017 ban on growth-promotion use but has since begun increasing again, according to the petition. Petitioners argue the voluntary approach the FDA has taken since 2017 has not sufficiently addressed the problem.
The 65 signatories include Consumer Reports, Health Care Without Harm, the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments, the Environmental Working Group, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, Moms Across America, the Sierra Club, and dozens of others.
What the Petition Asks
According to CIDRAP's coverage of the petition, the coalition asks the FDA to:
- Withdraw approvals for medically important antibiotics administered through feed or water for disease prevention or other uses not linked to diagnosed illness.
- Prohibit labeled administration periods of more than 21 days for group antibiotic treatments.
- Expand collection and public reporting of species-specific and sector-specific antibiotic use data.
- Establish public health-based antibiotic reduction targets for major livestock sectors.
The petition frames the current preventive use as unlawful under the federal standard that drug uses must present a "reasonable certainty of no harm" to human health — and argues that the FDA has never made such a finding for preventive antibiotic use in healthy animals.
The History This Petition Builds On
This is not the first petition on this issue. In 2016, the NRDC, Earthjustice, and other groups filed a similar petition. The FDA denied it five years later, in 2021, despite the agency generally agreeing that antibiotic use in animals can contribute to resistance development. A lawsuit challenging that denial is ongoing.
The 2026 petition is filed under a new administration, representing a fresh opportunity for the FDA to take a different position than the one it has held for more than a decade.
What Doctors and Experts Say
Katie Huffling, DNP, RN, CNM, FAAN, Executive Director of the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments, said in the petition filing statement: "The continued misuse of antibiotics in agriculture remains a major threat to lifesaving medications. While the health sector has taken significant steps to combat antimicrobial resistance, this growing public health crisis cannot be fully addressed unless the FDA takes strong action."
Retired infectious disease physician and Sierra Club volunteer leader Cheryl Ruble, MD, described seeing the consequences of antibiotic resistance throughout her career: "Throughout my career, I saw firsthand the consequences of antibiotic-resistant infections: limited and more toxic treatment options, more severe and prolonged illness, and poorer outcomes, including death. It is long past time to end this unnecessary and dangerous practice."
What the Evidence Shows — and What It Does Not
The scientific evidence that livestock antibiotic use contributes to drug resistance in humans is well established. The pathways are multiple: consumption of antibiotic-treated meat products, contact with manure used as agricultural fertilizer, contaminated water runoff from farms, and occupational exposure for farm and slaughterhouse workers.
What is more contested is the precise quantification of the human health burden attributable specifically to livestock antibiotic use versus hospital and community antibiotic overuse in humans. The 35,000 death and 2.8 million infection figures represent all antibiotic-resistant infections in the U.S. — not only those traced to livestock.
Who Is Most Affected?
The human populations most affected by antibiotic resistance from any source include:
- Patients undergoing surgery who depend on antibiotics for infection prevention
- Cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy who are immunocompromised
- Organ transplant recipients
- People with common community-acquired infections like urinary tract infections or pneumonia that are now showing resistance
- Farmworkers and slaughterhouse employees, who face direct occupational exposure to resistant bacteria
- Low-income communities near large livestock operations, where water and air pathways increase exposure risk
What You Can Do Now
- Support the FDA's formal review process by submitting a public comment if the petition opens a comment period. The FDA is required to respond to formal citizen's petitions.
- Choose meat products labeled "No Antibiotics Added" or "Raised Without Antibiotics" when possible and affordable — these products come from producers that do not use preventive antibiotics.
- Talk to your physician about your personal antibiotic use. Taking antibiotics only when prescribed for a confirmed bacterial infection, and completing the full course when prescribed, reduces contribution to resistance.
- If you work in a health care setting, support antimicrobial stewardship programs that reduce unnecessary antibiotic prescriptions for viral illnesses.
What Happens Next
The FDA is legally required to respond to formal citizen's petitions, though it has no mandated timeline for action. The agency denied the previous 2016 petition in 2021 — a five-year delay that petitioners now argue contributed to worsening conditions. The current petition arrives under a different FDA commissioner and with a broader coalition of signatories. MedicalDaily will report on any FDA response, formal comment period, or regulatory action related to this petition.
The Bottom Line
Sixty-five health and consumer organizations have formally petitioned the FDA to end the routine preventive use of medically important antibiotics in healthy livestock — a practice that petitioners argue contributes to the drug resistance crisis responsible for 35,000 American deaths per year. The FDA has the authority to act. Whether it will is now a policy question that affects every American who may one day need an antibiotic to fight a serious infection.
