BMJ 2013;347:f6050 doi: 10.1136/bmj.
f6050 (Published 7 October 2013)
News
Antimicrobial resistance will surge unless use of
antibiotics in animal feed is reduced
Anne Gulland
London
The use of antibiotics in agriculture must be curbed in a bid to
stop the growing threat of antimicrobial resistance, Englands
chief medical officer, Sally Davies, has said.
Davies told a meeting on antimicrobial resistance at the Royal
Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) in London
that 70% of the antibiotics dispensed in the United States were
used in animals, particularly in agriculture, where they were
used to encourage growth in livestock destined for human
consumption.
One of the things that worries me is the massive use of
antibiotics in animals. I think we have this the wrong way round.
The vets need to prove why they need so many antibiotics, and
its not up to [human health experts] to prove they are unsafe,
she said.
One delegate at the conference, the majority of which was held
under the Chatham House rule that states that those attending
should not be identified by name in the media, to enable them
to speak freely, said that vets were drug dealers, as it was in
their financial interest to sell drugs to their customers.
Davies added that if farming and other agricultural sectors
improved their hygiene they would not need so many antibiotics.
Didier Pittet, director of the infection control programme and
the WHO Collaborating Centre on Patient Safety at University
of Geneva Hospitals, told the BMJ that the global nature of the
food industry added to the complexity of the problem, with food
produced in one country and packaged in another.
The UK and the Nordic countries were examples of good
practice on antimicrobial resistance policies, but there had to
be a global approach to the problem, said Pittet. It makes no
sense to have one country being perfect about the use of
antibiotics in human and animals but the next door country is
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NEWS
not good. We live in a complex world, and the rules and
regulations are different in every country.
Davies said that WHO would come up with a resolution on
antimicrobial resistance at its 2014 executive board meeting in
January, which would raise the issue up the agenda.
One speaker said that there were large gaps in surveillance of
the threat of antimicrobial resistance, with a lack of population
based data to show its effects on morbidity and mortality.
The conference heard about inappropriate use of antibiotics in
developing countries, with such drugs often being available
over the counter. One conference delegate compared the private
pharmaceutical sector in the developing world to a failed state.
Another said that in India antibiotics were doing the heavy
lifting of reducing the burden of infectious disease in the
absence of improved hygiene and sanitation.
Jennifer Cohn, medical coordinator at the charity Mdecins
Sans Frontires, said that the developing world was seeing
alarming rates of antibiotic resistance.
Davies told the conference that there was a discovery void in
the development of new antibiotics. Patrick Vink, senior vice
president at the US based company Cubist Pharmaceuticals,
which has three new antibiotics in the pipeline for use in acute
care, told the BMJ that academia also had a role in encouraging
researchers to study antimicrobial resistance.
Oncology is more popular in academia than anti-infectives,
he said. He added that investors wanted predictability and that
moving the goal posts on drug prices was not helpful to
smaller companies developing new drugs.
Cite this as: BMJ 2013;347:f6050
BMJ Publishing Group Ltd 2013
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