{"id":45337,"date":"2024-05-06T09:00:19","date_gmt":"2024-05-06T08:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.innovationnewsnetwork.com\/?p=45337"},"modified":"2024-05-03T15:02:58","modified_gmt":"2024-05-03T14:02:58","slug":"antibiotics-in-farming-rethinking-agriculture-practices-stop-overuse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.innovationnewsnetwork.com\/antibiotics-in-farming-rethinking-agriculture-practices-stop-overuse\/45337\/","title":{"rendered":"Antibiotics in farming: Rethinking agriculture practices to stop overuse"},"content":{"rendered":"
Since their introduction to human medicine in the 1940s, antibiotics have become a cornerstone of modern medicine and helped save enormous numbers of lives. Antibiotics are not only used to treat patients that have a bacterial infection, they are essential for preventing infections in those undergoing life-saving procedures like cancer chemotherapy, organ transplants or caesareans, or other types of major surgery.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, according to the World Health Organization, the rise of antibiotic resistance, which occurs when bacteria evolve to resist the action of antibiotics, threatens many of the gains of modern medicine. The WHO says it is one of the top global public health and development threats.<\/p>\n
Antibiotic resistance is not merely a threat for the future, it is already here today and having a major impact. According to the first comprehensive assessment of the global impact of antibiotic resistance, published in 2019 in the journal The Lancet<\/em>, the deaths of 1.27 million people a year are directly attributable to antibiotic resistance, and 4.95 million deaths a year are associated with antibiotic resistance.<\/p>\n Increasing levels of resistance are due to the use and overuse of antibiotics. Excessive antibiotic use increases the selective pressure on bacteria to evolve resistance, as sensitive bacteria are killed off, and resistant ones survive, multiply and spread.<\/p>\n The main cause of resistance in most human infections is the use of antibiotics in human medicine, but we know that the overuse of antibiotics in intensive livestock farming is also contributing.<\/p>\n When antibiotics are overused in farm animals, bacteria in their guts, or on their skin, develop resistance, and these can spread to humans through the food chain<\/a>, the environment, or by direct contact. This occurs for a wide variety of infections, including typical food-poisoning bacteria, like Salmonella or Campylobacter, the increasingly resistant E. coli, which is responsible for thousands of deaths in the UK each year, or for well-known superbugs like MRSA or Clostrdium difficile.<\/p>\n In many countries, data on antibiotic use is poor, but it is estimated that globally, about two-thirds of all antibiotics are used in farm animals, with the percentage in the UK being lower at about 30%. Much of this farm antibiotic use is inappropriate and avoidable. Far too often antibiotics are given to groups of animals, in feed or drinking water, to control the spread of diseases which occur in the stressful and unhygienic conditions in which many intensively farmed animals are kept. This occurs particularly for pigs and poultry, but also in some countries in cattle.<\/p>\nOveruse of antibiotics in farming<\/h3>\n
Stop the overuse of antibiotics in livestock farming<\/h3>\n