Antibiotic use in US meat production spiked 16% in 2024, representing the highest increase since the government began tracking data, a new federal report shows. The data covers “medically important” antibiotics that are also used in humans, including widely used drugs such as the Z-Pak.

The shift is raising fears of an increase in antibiotic-resistant “superbugs”, or pathogens that are difficult to treat because they evolve to become immune to drug treatments. These already sicken millions of people annually, and many of the drugs carry other potential health risks, as well, including cancer.

The jump comes despite federal efforts to rein in medically important antibiotic use, and an industry pledge to use less of it. After an unprecedented drop in antibiotic use nearly a decade ago, the medicines’ use have generally been trending in the other direction, data shows.

Antibiotic use in chicken and turkey jumped nearly 80% and 25%, respectively, but use in each is already so low that even the spikes leave current levels far below peaks ins 2015. Beef and pork antibiotic use dropped to the lowest levels around that time, but have since steadily inched up, until they spiked by about 16% in 2024.

Increases in antibiotic use in cattle and pigs are more concerning, advocates say, because they account for nearly 85% of all antibiotics used in US meat production.

Many factory farms are scrapping efforts to reduce antibiotics because it saves them money, said Steve Roach, safe and healthy food program director at Food Animal Concerns Trust. Some are also likely using the medicine to promote animal growth.

“It’s easier to give antibiotics than it is to provide healthy conditions for animals in the huge facilities where most food animals are raised, and with public awareness waning and lack of significant government action, the meat industry will make the easier choice,” Roach said.

The increases come despite meat producers raising fewer cattle and turkey in 2024 compared with 2023, and pigs and chicken production increasing by less than 1%.

The 2024 data, from the last year of the Biden administration, is the latest available. There is little evidence of a shift at the Food and Drug Administration, which regulates antibiotics in the nation’s livestock, under Donald Trump and health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, Roach said.

Kennedy’s “make America healthy again” campaign aims to address issues such as overuse of chemicals in food, and the FDA administrator Martin Makary in 2018, as an independent scientist, called for a reduction in antibiotic use.

The US recorded more than 2.8m antibiotic-resistant infections and 35,000 deaths in 2024. Workers in the livestock and meat industries, children, elderly people and persons with chronic illness are more at risk from superbug infections.

There is a dearth of information around other health problems associated with eating meat laced with the drugs, but recent academic and peer-reviewed research points to a greater risk than has been understood, said Kestrel Burcham, policy director with the Cornucopia Institute, an independent organic industry advocate and watchdog. Recent research has found even a low dose residue in meat can impact human gut microbiome, which could have wide-ranging, but difficult-to-establish, health impacts.

The FDA in 2009 began tracking sales of medically important antibiotics for use in food-producing animals and releasing annual reports. Around 2013, the agency effectively required meat producers to cut back on antibiotic use by asking drugmakers to change label directions to prohibit medically important antibiotics from being used for growth promotion.

It is illegal for meat producers not to follow feed drugs’ labels, but it is unclear how closely industry adheres to the directions.

“How much enforcement there is on that is questionable,” Roach said.

The rule also contains a loophole. Many medically important drugs that are banned for growth promotion can be fed to livestock to prevent disease and factory farms are notorious for their often unsanitary conditions. It is cheaper to feed the animals antibiotics than to operate the farm in a way that prevents the spread of disease, Roach said.

The antibiotics still have the growth promoting effects, even if they are being used to prevent disease.

“That’s a big piece of the puzzle,” Roach said.

Burcham said the best way to avoid the antibiotics is to buy organic meat and dairy products. An organic animal can be given antibiotics if it is sick, but it cannot be sold as organic afterward. Some packaging claims meat products are “antibiotic-free”, but there is no legal definition for “antibiotic-free”, and some meats labeled as such still contain the medicine.

“It’s not as rigorous as organic,” Burcham said.