Antibiotics health crisis: Compassion highlights the part played by factory farms
A world without effective antibiotics is a terrifying but real prospect. Now, the situation is so acute that the Director-General of the World Health Organization, Dr Margaret Chan, has warned of "a post-antibiotic era, in which many common infections will no longer have a cure and once again, kill unabated" (7th April 2011).
A new Alliance
Compassion in World Farming has joined with two other established organisations, Sustain and the Soil Association, to form the Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics. Together we aim to halt the routine use of antibiotics in farm animals.
A new report published by Compassion, 'Case Study of a Health Crisis', goes into all the detail on this vital medical and animal health issue. It explains why over-use of antibiotics in factory farming, especially at low doses over several days, is contributing to the huge threat of a world without effective cures for bacterial infections.
The Alliance position
The Alliance asserts that the reason antibiotics are being over-used in the farming sector is that factory-farmed animals are inevitably at high risk of infection, and the report puts forward evidence to support this. This is because they:
- Live caged, confined or penned in crowded, stressful conditions
- Are often physiologically stretched to the limit to maximise productivity, and/or
- Are weaned very early.
Conditions like this can suppress the animal’s immune system, so factory farming often relies on preventive use of antibiotics instead. The report highlights viable, alternative models of maintaining good animal health with minimal use of antibiotics such as in extensive grassland rearing or integrated crop-livestock farming.
What the Alliance wants
We are asking the EU to take action to end the misuse of antibiotics in farming and ensure animals are reared and kept in conditions that allow them to maintain their health.
More information
The report contains a full explanation of the use of antibiotics on farms and why this leads to antibiotic-resistant bacteria, which are a threat to human and animal health, now and in the future.
FREE TO DOWNLOAD
We have two reports and a four-page summary which can be downloaded for free using the links below.
‘Antibiotics in Animal Farming’ focuses on the scientific evidence on antibiotic resistance and ‘Case Study of a Health Crisis’ places these scientific arguments in a policy context and makes recommendations for political reform.
Read our four-page campaign document outlining the reason for the launch and our key recommendations for policy and action.
4 page summary document.
How human health is under threat from over-use of antibiotics in intensive livestock farming
32 page report published November 2011
The background report, which contains more detailed scientific evidence.
43 page report published November 2011