California’s new law against feeding antibiotics to livestock is encouraging to Oregon consumer advocates who hope to see a similar ban pass in 2017.

Oregon public health professionals think a state ban would help control drug-resistant germs that sicken millions of Americans each year — so-called superbugs — and have backed a bill pushed by the Oregon State Public Interest Research Group.

But the advocates would have to overcome opposition from the Oregon Farm Bureau, which contends that regulations under development by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration make a state law unnecessary.

Bend Sen. Tim Knopp, a Republican member of the Senate Interim Committee on Health Care, thinks that the overuse of antibiotics is an urgent public health matter, but he agrees with the farm bureau that a patchwork of state regulations could hurt business for farmers and ranchers. “What we’re trying to do is keep pressure on the FDA to deal with some of these issues,” he said.

Around 70 percent of medically important antibiotics sold in the United States are given to food-producing animals, and they can be used to promote weight gain or to prevent disease. Giving antibiotics to animals that are not sick contributes to the growth of drug-resistant bacteria.

Researchers traced superbugs, including Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, to farms through genetic markers. Further studies have found that hog farm workers are more likely to be colonized by those drug-resistant staph. (While the presence of drug-resistant bacteria make the farm workers more vulnerable to infection, they don’t necessarily get sick.)

Oregon has seen fewer superbug infections than other states, according to Dr. Brian Wong, former chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Oregon Health and Science University, but MRSA, C. diff. and drug-resistant gonorrhea are significant problems.

Testifying last spring in favor of Oregon’s first, short-lived antibiotics bill, Wong said hospitals and nursing homes in Oregon have invested heavily in tracking and managing resistant organisms. It’s important to eliminate the use of antibiotics in animals for anything other than treating and preventing infectious disease, he said.

An FDA guideline that’s supposed to end the use of antibiotics for weight gain takes effect at the end of 2016. In June, the agency issued a final rule requiring veterinary supervision for all other uses.

“At first blush, that sounds like, hey, great, we’ve got the problem solved,” said David Rosenfeld, executive director of OSPIRG. “There’s a huge, gaping loophole in what they’re doing.”

Under the FDA rule, farms could still put antibiotics in animals’ food or water on a routine basis, Rosenfeld said. “That’s the loophole we’re seeking to close. That’s the loophole that the California bill closed.”

The Oregon Farm Bureau says OSPIRG’s quest to eliminate the routine use of antibiotics would keep farmers and ranchers from taking steps necessary to prevent the loss of entire herds. “Once a disease takes hold, you really have a problem on your hands — an expensive one that could wipe out your operation,” said Jennifer Dresler, director of state public policy.

The farm bureau frequently cites sheep shearing season as an example of where antibiotics are used to prevent widespread loss of animals before disease even crops up.

Removing a ewe’s fur is stressful to her lamb, which finds its mother through the scent of her lanolin. When they’re stressed, lambs become vulnerable to swiftly spreading pneumonia, so farmers give the ewes antibiotics, which are passed to the lambs through milk, for about a week before shearing, Dresler said.

California’s law, which takes effect in January 2018, is the product of compromise between consumer advocates and agriculture interests. Oregon is nowhere close to that.