You can see why the British vetocracy are now in panic mode. This is a mechanical translation of the proposals from the French Agricultural Minister to control antibiotic use.
Britain's veterinarians not only have very sick pigs, and massive secret antibiotic usage, to continue to hide up from the general public, but they also have the French preaching veterinary heresy.
Who would want to be a Maff-Defra veterinarian?
The idea of taxing livestock antibiotics would not work. Taxation would merely encourage smuggling.
Antibiotics are smuggled into Britain currently, to take advantage of relatively minor price differences and even some British veterinarians were found to be buying them to increase their margins. Taxation, unless it was uniform throughout the EU and other source countries, would merely increase the incentives for smuggling and anyway there would doubtless also be illegal leakage from non-taxed human antibiotic sources.
So the main thrust would be external regulation of the veterinary industry.
If the British veterinary industry had nothing to hide on animal health and antibiotic usage, they would have nothing to worry about.
Full press release here
Stéphane LE FOLL makes targeted use of antibiotics and responsible veterinary public health priority
Paris
14/11/2012
On the occasion of a conference he organized titled "Evaluating the
use of veterinary antibiotics and reduce" Stéphane LE FOLL, Minister
of Agriculture, Food and Forestry presented its guidelines for
responsible use of targeted antibiotics in veterinary medicine
He announced the following guidelines in the plan Ecoantibio 2017:
Regulate the prescription of antibiotics with a major interest in
human medicine(antibiotics called critical) and prohibit their use as
a preventive measure in the agricultural sector to maintain their
effectiveness;
Give a status of "public good" to antibiotics in order to make
possible special measures to fight against antibiotic resistance;
Finally promote new methods and breeding practices based on
strengthening prevention and for limiting the use of antibiotics;
Reflect on the reform of the taxation of veterinary medicines, to
promote responsible use and contribute to the financing plan
Ecoantibio;
Brainstorming on business practices that antibiotic prescriptions
are not linked to market incentives, leading to proposals for
legislation to be included in the law for the future of agriculture,
food and forestry ,
Stéphane LE FOLL said: "The more targeted use of antibiotics in
veterinary medicine is a priority for the health of all. It passes
through both regulatory changes and the dissemination of new
production models more environmentally and health. This objective
should be based on a strong commitment of the production chain,
reducing our dependence on antibiotics contributes to the health
performance of our productions. "
