Last week, David Cameron announced a new expert review of the antibiotic resistance crisis. But nothing was said about the risks to human health from intensive livestock farming systems.
In response to the announcement, the Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics, of which OneKind is a member, says the urgent reduction of antibiotic use in farming must become government policy.
The antimicrobial resistance crisis, caused mainly by overuse in human medicine, but also in farming, is so serious that the Chief Medical Officer Professor Dame Sally Davies gave it the same risk status as terrorism. The World Health Organisation has called it a major global threat to public health. In a potential post-antibiotic era, common infections will again kill, and routine operations such as hip replacements will become too risky to carry out. Cancer treatment will no longer be possible.
Fortunately, there have been sharp falls in the use of these antibiotics in human medicine in recent years due to new guidelines being introduced and applied. But much intensive livestock rearing still depends on routinely giving animals antibiotics, often when no disease is present, to keep them going in conditions that can be squalid, overcrowded, and stressful conditions. This leads to the development of antimicrobial resistance, which can then pass to humans.
Given that 5,000 people die every year from antibiotic resistant E. coli and scientists have warned that ‘a large proportion of resistant E. coli isolates causing blood stream infections in people may be derived from food sources’, it is surprising that the UK government has not placed more emphasis on reducing on-farm antibiotic use.
The Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics brings together health, medical, environmental and animal welfare groups working to stop the over-use of antibiotics in animal farming. It’s a global issue and the Alliance lobbies the European Commission to review veterinary medicines legislation at EU level. Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland and the Netherlands, have banned, or are phasing out, the routine preventative use of antibiotics in farming.
In the UK, however, just under half of all the antibiotics used are given to farm animals for treating or preventing the diseases caused by intensive farming. Total antibiotic use in animals is slightly higher than five years ago, despite falls in the numbers of animals. Per unit of livestock, the overall use of antibiotics in British pigs and poultry is three to five times higher than in the five Nordic countries Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden.
Alison Craig, Campaign Manager of the Alliance says: “Although we welcome the plan to review the global over-use of antibiotics in the Prime Minister's announcement, this won't save lives. He needs to take action: to ban or phase out the routine preventative use of antibiotics on farms.”
OneKind agrees. We support the use of antibiotics to treat illnesses in animals. But what we must stop is the routine use of antibiotics to compensate for inhumane farming practices. Farm animals must be kept in more humane, disease-free conditions.
Take action -
The Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics has launched a petition with 38 Degrees which more than 17,000 people have signed. Please sign and share the petition if you haven’t already.