The White House Forum on Antibiotic Stewardship brought together some 150 representatives from food companies, retailers, drugmakers, farmers, medical societies and others involved in human and animal health to discuss limiting the overuse of antibiotics in livestock, animal feed and humans.

The Forum builds on a number of steps the Administration has taken to combat antibiotic resistance. In September 2014, President Obama signed Executive Order 13676 prioritizing Federal efforts to combat the rise in antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The Administration also issued the National Strategy on Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria, and the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology released a report with recommendations to address the crisis of the proliferation of antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections. In March 2015, the Administration released the National Action Plan for Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria, a comprehensive plan that identifies critical actions for key Federal departments and agencies to enhance diagnosis and treatment and limit the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that drug-resistant bacteria, which stop responding to the medicines designed to kill them, cause 2 million illnesses and about 23,000 deaths each year in the United States alone. CDC Director Thomas Frieden said antibiotic resistance might be the single most important infectious disease threat today. “If we lose antibiotics, the medicine chest will be empty and it will not only undermine our ability to treat routine infections, but it will undermine much of modern medicine,” Frieden said on a conference call with reporters to announce the White House Forum. “We risk turning back the clock to a world where simple infections can be fatal just as they were a century ago.”

Among the topics under discussion will be developing guidelines and recommendations to control the overuse of antibiotics in hospitals and curtail their use in food animals.

Ahead of the meeting, President Barack Obama signed a memorandum directing Federal departments and agencies to create a preference for meat and poultry produced according to responsible antibiotic-use. The Presidential Food Service is also committing to serving meats and poultry that have not been treated with hormones or antibiotics. Separately, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will announce that it has finalized changes to the Veterinary Feed Directive (VFD) regulation, an important piece of FDA’s overall strategy to promote the judicious use of medically important antibiotics in food-producing animals as it facilitates bringing the feed-use of such antibiotics under the oversight of licensed veterinarians.