Medicated feed premixes – is carryover in feed really a problem?

It was reported last week that the Dutch are planning to ban the use of medicated feed premixes in 2011 from April 1st, in an attempt to reduce their overall usage of antibiotics in farm animals. It will be an interesting experiment. One of their concerns was the carryover of antibiotics from one batch of medicated feed to the next and the possibility that low levels of antimicrobial contamination may play a role in selecting for resistant strains of bacteria. After nearly 70 years of usage of