18.05.22
A joint letter has been sent to the European Commission calling for better EU protections for vital antibiotics.
The letter, signed by nineteen health and animal welfare organisations, including the Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics, expresses a deep concern about the absence of critically important antibiotics on the European Commission's list of antibiotics reserved for sole use in human medicine.
On the 19th of April, the European Commission published a draft list of antibiotics that were to be reserved across the European Union for human health, based on the European Medicines Agency’s recommendation. This list of antibiotics would not be permitted to be used in animal agriculture, within the EU.
The list has been criticised for not providing enough protection for vital antibiotics, including last resort antibiotic colistin, and on Monday the 26th of May nineteen Civil society organisations wrote to the European Commission calling on them to revise this draft list of antibiotics reserved for human health.
At present, none of the antibiotics included on the current list are authorised for veterinary use in farmed animals in the EU, which means this list will bring no change to current farming practices that can rely on antibiotics to compensate for poor animal husbandry.
We call on the European Commission to rethink the list of antibiotics reserved for human health in order to combat rising levels of antibiotics resistance and better preserve our vital antibiotics for future generations.
