Stakeholder position paper: food animal veterinarian.

Food animal veterinarians practice in a variety of settings with considerable differences between the settings. Due to variability, aggregate data from surveillance of antimicrobial use is not very useful to practitioners unless correlated information is provided, such as the relative disease status, ages of animals, and purpose of use. Of greater utility is use data as it relates to a specific farm or production system. Of greater importance to clinical practitioners is a meaningful surveillance system that tracks trends in antimicrobial resistance in common pathogens causing animal diseases.