Earlier this year, the World Health Organization issued a report warning of an emerging public health problem as the world enters a “post-antibiotic” era. Some believe that routine use of antibiotics in animal feed contributes to antibiotic resistance. Still, however, many hog, cattle, and poultry producers incorporate low doses of antibiotics such as penicillin and tetracyclines into their daily feeds in a blanket effort to prevent and treat infections.

In 2011, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) rejected two citizen petitions for the agency to hold public hearings to review the latest scientific evidence on the safety of antibiotics in livestock feed. The rejection contradicted a 1977 agency declaration that the practice was unsafe. In 2012, the National Resources Defense Council, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, and other groups named in a suit brought against the FDA won their case in New York district court for investigating the use of antibiotics in feed.

On Thursday, the federal appeals court overturned the 2012 decision and said that the FDA had authority over the courts in managing this concern.

“It is not for us to determine whether [the FDA] has been prudent or imprudent, wise or foolish, effective or ineffective in its approach to this problem,” the judges wrote in the majority opinion.

Some public health experts are dismayed with the ruling. Said Robert S. Lawrence of the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future in a statement, “The misuse of antibiotics in food animal production contributes to the epidemic of antibiotic resistance in our hospitals and communities…Today’s decision is deeply disappointing.”