Antibiotic Guidelines
Guidelines for the Use of Antibiotics on Approved IACUC Protocols
Purpose
To provide guidelines for clinical veterinarians to use their professional judgment with regard to administering antibiotics and other therapeutic drugs for the prevention, prophylaxis, and treatment of research-related conditions.
Policy
These guidelines allow the clinical veterinarians to change the antibiotic drug, dosage, frequency, duration and course of antibiotic therapy that is given as part of an approved animal care and use protocol.
Such changes might be made due to:
- The availability of the drug, for example if the drug is no longer produced or is out-of-stock.
- New drugs being available that were not available at the time the protocol was last reviewed.
- New information about species-specific drug reactions that was not available during the initial veterinary review of the protocol.
- New information about drug interactions that was not available during the initial veterinary review of the protocol.
- Clinical experience that a different drug is more appropriate for the given situation.
No changes will be made to a research protocol without the prior approval of the Principal Investigator (PI), unless the PI is unavailable and the clinical veterinarian determines the changes are critically necessary due to significant animal welfare issues. However, animals being treated for an injury or illness can be prescribed any treatments, as the veterinary staff deem necessary for the clinical management of individual animals. Every attempt will be made to contact the PI in advance to ensure that all are in agreement with the approach and that the change would not negatively impact the research protocol and studies in progress.
IACUC-51
Approved by IACUC: 10/16/2008
Supersedes: New