California Senate Bill 27: a natural experiment in antibiotic stewardship (360G-Wellcome-209339_Z_17_Z)

On January 1, 2018, California will enact a Senate Bill (SB27), making it the first state in the U.S. to ban nontherapeutic antimicrobial use in livestock production. This measure, designed to curb overuse of antibiotics in industrial food animal production, represents a singular opportunity for a natural experiment to rigorously evaluate the role of industrial livestock production on antimicrobial resistant bacteria in retail meat and human infections. We will leverage whole genome sequencing and expansive electronic health record data to determine whether an upstream, statewide policy to reduce antibiotic use in livestock production will have a downstream, beneficial impact on human health. We were recently funded by the US National Institutes of Health to study the impacts of this legislation on E. coli only. Here we are requesting funds to expand our sampling to include two common foodborne pathogens, Salmonella and Campylobacter. Specifically, we are requesting funds to bolster our baseline data collection during the time leading up to the implementation of the legislation (the next 6 months). We anticipate that, in response to decreasing antibiotic selection, antibiotic-resistant Salmonella and Campylobacter populations will decrease rapidly in poultry and on poultry meat resulting in fewer drug-resistant human infections.