The National Task Force for Combating Resistant Bacteria will release a five-year action plan in order to address the increasing problem of antibiotic resistance. Although many steps would be taken under the plan in an attempt to control the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, it will not be considering critical reforms in the agricultural sector, which are important to protect public health.

According to Dev Gowda, Advocate with Illinois PIRG's Stop Antibiotics Overuse campaign, President Obama has worked well to deal with this problem from many aspects. However, he added that the administration has not done much regarding the troubling overuse and misuse of antibiotics on large factory farms.

It is necessary to deal with the overuse of antibiotics in agriculture, but adequate actions are not taken to deal with it in spite of recent assurances by many major retailers to reduce the purchase of meat raised with the regular use of the drugs.

For example, earlier this month, an announcement was made by McDonald's that it will discontinue use of chicken raised with medically important antibiotics in its US restaurants. This could help deal with the overuse of antibiotics in agriculture than the policies suggested in the plan.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in 2013 that antibiotic resistance could be the 'next pandemic', and it has also been reported by the agency that every year, 2 million Americans fall ill and 23,000 die because of antibiotic-resistant infections.

According to Gowda, "Factory farms are playing a game of chicken with superbugs, and our ability to treat infections big and small may end up losing. While fast food restaurants are taking the lead on confronting this issue, our national laws are not keeping up".