The Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics is calling on the government to ensure that its Repeal Bill fully converts EU law governing farm antibiotic use into UK law. Any substantive changes to policies and standards should be made by primary legislation only, giving a full and proper role to parliamentary scrutiny. The government should also work with other EU countries to urgently put an end all routine preventative farm antibiotic use.
Cóilín Nunan, of the Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics, said: “Scientists and medics are warning we face a post-antibiotic era unless we take urgent action to restrict and reduce antibiotic use in both human and veterinary medicine [1]. The government should be moving without further delay to ban routine preventative farm antibiotic use, just as several other European countries have already done [2]. Any attempt to use Brexit as a means to avoiding implementation of the highest regulatory standards would be hugely irresponsible in an era of increasing antibiotic resistance.”
In March 2016, the European Parliament voted by 95% in favour of new veterinary medicines regulations which would ban mass medication with antibiotics for groups of animals where no disease has been diagnosed within the group [3]. However, the ban has not yet become EU law because the regulations are still being discussed by Member States. The British government claims to support the proposed ban, but refuses to take action before the EU regulations are agreed.
The delay in the implementation of the new EU veterinary medicines regulations may mean that no ban on preventative mass medication with antibiotics will be included in UK law when Brexit occurs. The government has not committed to banning preventative mass medication, if the EU legislation only comes into force post-Brexit, and is instead relying on voluntary initiatives to reduce farm antibiotic use.
The Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics is an alliance of health, medical, environmental and animal welfare groups working to stop the overuse of antibiotics in animal farming. It was founded by Compassion in World Farming, the Soil Association and Sustain in 2009. Its vision is a world in which human and animal health and wellbeing are protected by food and farming systems that do not rely routinely on antibiotics and related drugs.
