Campaigners call for end to routine use of antibiotics in livestock

Routine preventative use of antibiotics in livestock production must end says the Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics, and the farm use of antibiotics intended for 'last resort' use in medicine must be completely banned. 

The Alliance's call comes on the day the Chief Medical Officer and Chief Veterinary Officer are due to give evidence to the powerful House of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology about antibiotic resistance [1].

News has emerged that resistance to 'last resort' antibiotics has risen from around five hospital patients in England in 2006 to over 600 in 2013 [2]. When an infection is resistant to antibiotics, doctors try one drug after another, finally resorting to 'reserve' products if nothing else works. The patient suffers a more protracted illness, and treatment failure can also result in death.

The increasing use of a class of antibiotics - modern cephalosporins - in farming has contributed to a rise of a particular form of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, both in farm animals and in people, mainly through food. This has forced doctors into using drugs of last resort - the carbapenems. Frighteningly, bacteria are now showing resistance to even these antibiotics.

Carbapenems are not licensed for use in farm animals, but vets are permitted to prescribe them off-label under certain conditions. No statistics exist on the extent of the use of carbapenems in farming.

Intensive farming systems rely on the routine use of antibiotics to prevent disease outbreaks caused by overcrowding, lack of access to the outdoors and an excessive attempt to increase productivity. Almost 50% of all antibiotics are fed to healthy farm animals in the UK. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the European Food Safety Authority, the overuse of farm antibiotics is contributing to the growth of antibiotic resistance in people [3].

"We have long known that the excessive and unethical use of antibiotics in livestock production is worsening the threat to human health," says Alison Craig of the Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics. "But it is shocking to realise that there is nothing in the regulations to stop farmers using the 'last resort' drugs intended for use in human medicine. Vets may be tempted to start prescribing these medicines if resistance continues to build up to other products which are being overused.

"The Department of Health needs to realise that however many efforts they may make to reduce antibiotic use by doctors, these may prove futile if the profligate excesses in farming are allowed to continue. They must act now to phase out routine preventative use of antibiotics in agriculture."

The Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics is also concerned that the Department of Health doesn’t collect statistics on the number of people currently dying from multi-drug resistant infections.

For more information, please contact: 

• Alison Craig, Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics Campaign Manager: 07709 730561
• Coilin Nunan, Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics Principal Scientific Adviser: 07786 925713

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Notes to editors

1. At the Select Committee on Science and Technology hearing on 12th March the following are giving evidence on antimicrobial resistance:

• Professor Dame Sally Davies, Chief Medical Officer, Department of HealthSally Wellsteed, Antimicrobial Resistance and Healthcare Associated Infections Team Leader, Department of Health
• Nigel Gibbens, Chief Veterinary Officer, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
• George Eustice MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Farming, Food and Marine Environment, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
• Jane Ellison MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Public Health, Department of Health
• Professor John Watson, Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Department of Health
• Professor Peter Boriello, Chief Executive, Veterinary Medicines Directorate

2. Public Health England press release of 6 March 2014:

3. From letter to all Acute NHS Trusts from Dr Paul Cosford, Medical Director and Director for Health Protection, Public Health England and Sir Bruce Keogh, Medical Director, NHS England, 27 Feb 2014: Carbapenemase-producing Enterobacteriaceae represent one of the most serious emerging infectious disease threats that we currently face, and the failure to control their spread now, while we still have the opportunity, could have substantial human health and financial consequences. Infections caused by these bacteria are extremely difficult to treat as they are resistant to carbapenems, which are considered ‘last resort’ antibiotics.

Read coverage of this story in The Independent: Ban vets from using 'last resort' antibiotics to beat drug-resistant bacteria, say campaigners.

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The Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics was founded by Compassion in World Farming, The Soil Association and Sustain and is supported by the Jeremy Coller Foundation. The Alliance exists to highlight the danger of antibiotic overuse in intensive farming to the health of people and farm animals and to be part of the solution to the problem of growing antimicrobial resistance. Its vision is a world in which human and animal health and well-being are protected by food and farming systems that do not rely routinely on antibiotics and related drugs.

We are campaigning for:

• a legally binding timetable for phased ending of prophylactic use of antibiotics in farming
• a ban on third and fourth generation cephalosporins in poultry to be implemented and a ban introduced for pigs and cattle
• a ban on the use of fluoroquinalones in poultry
• legislation to improve the husbandry of farmed animals and extensify it to protect animal health
• improved surveillance of the use of antibiotics in farming - usage, resistance rates, and incidence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria on meat for retail sale.