Row over antibiotic ‘misuse’ on farm animals

The frequency of which antibiotics are prescribed to human patients has hit the headlines after Britain’s chief medical officer, Professor Dame Sally Davies, was reported as saying that the threat of antibiotics resistance in humans is as dangerous a risk as terrorism.

It prompted a report by The Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics, formed by Compassion in World Farming, the Soil Association and Sustain, alleging a growing threat of antibiotic resistance passing from food animals to humans and that antibiotics are used routinely for disease prevention or for the treatment of avoidable outbreaks on many ‘intensive’ livestock farms, causing treatment failures in human infections.

Richard Young, Soil Association policy adviser, said: “We need a complete change of attitude within Defra and the livestock industry. Antibiotics should only be used when animals become ill and not given to large groups of healthy animals as a cheap insurance policy.”

NFU animal health and welfare adviser, Catherine McLaughlin, who questioned the use of scientific evidence used in the report, said: “The NFU recently met with the Soil Association to discuss areas of concern around antibiotic resistance, and we are extremely disappointed to see that appears to have had no effect. This report has the potential to be dangerous and misleading, and does nothing to advocate a responsible debate around the issue.

“British farmers work hard to produce food that is safe and high quality. Antibiotics are not used to prop up poor husbandry, or unnecessarily, instead they are used as little as possible but as much as necessary.”