**Despite the bloc’s strict rules, drugs often compensate for poor welfare**
In the 1940s a group of American farmers discovered that antibiotics not only prevented illness in their livestock but also helped the animals grow faster and fatter. That discovery led to routine use of antibiotics, something that boosted agriculture around the world. But for farmers in the European Union, the days of heavy dosing are over. The bloc banned the use of antimicrobials to promote growth in 2006. On January 28th it enacted even stricter rules. These drugs can no longer be given preventatively to herds en masse, nor used to compensate for poor animal welfare, such as overcrowding.
Antimicrobials destroy microbes but overuse, in animals or humans, creates evolutionary pressure: as a result of exposure to the drugs, bugs evolve to resist their effects. This can lead to the emergence of “superbugs”, infections that are hard—sometimes impossible— to treat. It is difficult to quantify exactly how much overuse in livestock contributes to drug-resistance in human infections. But drug-resistant bugs that develop in animals can spread to humans—often through food. In recent years a growing number of people have become ill with drug-resistant strains of salmonella, which scientists have traced back to poultry. Different strains of bacteria can also share drug-resistant genes: an E. coli strain adapted to animals might pass on resistance to another E. coli strain that thrives in humans.
Drug-resistant infections are on the rise and were directly responsible for nearly 1.3m deaths in 2019, according to a recent study by the Lancet, a medical journal. These risks have made the eu’s new rules popular with health lobbyists. But some countries are far closer to implementing the law than others, according to a report from the European Public Health Alliance (epha), published on January 28th. On average Swedish farmers use 11mg of antimicrobials per livestock unit (a measure based on the number of animals and their average weight). Their counterparts in Spain use 154mg. Cypriot farmers use a whopping 394mg.
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**Despite the bloc’s strict rules, drugs often compensate for poor welfare**
In the 1940s a group of American farmers discovered that antibiotics not only prevented illness in their livestock but also helped the animals grow faster and fatter. That discovery led to routine use of antibiotics, something that boosted agriculture around the world. But for farmers in the European Union, the days of heavy dosing are over. The bloc banned the use of antimicrobials to promote growth in 2006. On January 28th it enacted even stricter rules. These drugs can no longer be given preventatively to herds en masse, nor used to compensate for poor animal welfare, such as overcrowding.
Antimicrobials destroy microbes but overuse, in animals or humans, creates evolutionary pressure: as a result of exposure to the drugs, bugs evolve to resist their effects. This can lead to the emergence of “superbugs”, infections that are hard—sometimes impossible— to treat. It is difficult to quantify exactly how much overuse in livestock contributes to drug-resistance in human infections. But drug-resistant bugs that develop in animals can spread to humans—often through food. In recent years a growing number of people have become ill with drug-resistant strains of salmonella, which scientists have traced back to poultry. Different strains of bacteria can also share drug-resistant genes: an E. coli strain adapted to animals might pass on resistance to another E. coli strain that thrives in humans.
Drug-resistant infections are on the rise and were directly responsible for nearly 1.3m deaths in 2019, according to a recent study by the Lancet, a medical journal. These risks have made the eu’s new rules popular with health lobbyists. But some countries are far closer to implementing the law than others, according to a report from the European Public Health Alliance (epha), published on January 28th. On average Swedish farmers use 11mg of antimicrobials per livestock unit (a measure based on the number of animals and their average weight). Their counterparts in Spain use 154mg. Cypriot farmers use a whopping 394mg.