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Friday 26 October 2012

Veterinarians oppose restrictions on antibiotic use


British veterinarians certainly intend to be forced into antibiotic prescription reform kicking and screaming.

It’s a bit late for token changes. Much damage to public health has long been done by over-prescription in livestock farming..

Current levels of use of antibiotics for livestock is continuing to undermine human health, not least that of the veterinarians' own, their families’, the farmers and their families'.

The veterinarians have to prove that what they are doing is safe for humans, not the other way round.

The Dutch position is right: take the antibiotics away and let the veterinarians make the scientific case for being allowed to continue to prescribe, if they can.

If they are so sure there is no hazard to human health, they should have no problem comprehensively proving their case.

The Pig Site report here


Call for Science to Influence Key Decisions on Antibiotic Use

26 October 2012

UK - The EU is considering sheltering some key antibiotics from veterinary use to protect their efficacy in human medicine. Yet science indicates that the link between on-farm use and the development of resistance in human pathogens is unlikely, with politics driving key decisions. Editor, Charlotte Johnston, reports from a UK veterinary conference...

...Speaking at the British Mastitis Conference, Declan O’Rourke from Ortec Veterinary Consultancy said that there was no science behind the Dutch government’s decision to target a 70 per cent reduction in antibiotic use between 2009 and 2015. ...