WHO is recommending that farmers and the food industry stop using antibiotics routinely to promote growth and prevent disease in healthy animals. In its guidelines on the use of medically important antimicrobials in food producing animals WHO strongly recommends an overall reduction in the use of all classes of medically important antibiotics in food producing animals including complete restriction of these antibiotics for growth promotion and disease prevention without diagnosis. Healthy animals should only receive antibiotics to prevent disease if it has been diagnosed in other animals in the same flock herd or fish population. The new WHO recommendations aim to help preserve the effectiveness of antibiotics that are important for human medicine by reducing their unnecessary use in animals WHO November 7 2017 .