Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics

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The Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics is an alliance of health, medical, civil society and animal welfare groups campaigning to stop the overuse of antibiotics in animal farming.

The Alliance was founded in 2009 by Compassion in World Farming Compassion-in-World-Farming-horiz.svg, the Soil Association and Sustain . Our vision is a world in which human and animal health and well-being are protected by food and farming systems that do not rely on routine antibiotic use.

The Issue

Systematic overuse of antibiotics in human and animal medicine is undermining their ability to cure life-threatening infections in people, by creating an army of dangerous bacteria which are resistant to antibiotics. It is predicted that 10m people a year could die from antibiotic resistant infections by 2050.

It is legal to routinely mass-medicate whole groups of animals, even when no disease has been diagnosed in any of them. Perfectly healthy animals are given antibiotics - especially pigs and poultry - as a preventative, to compensate for low-welfare, cramped conditions where disease outbreaks are common and hard to control. Around 40% of all antibiotics in the UK are given to farm animals.

Systematic overuse of antibiotics in farming must stop. We are in danger of losing these remarkable assets, and with them the ability to protect our health. This is no longer a prediction for the future. If we are to save our antibiotics, we must act fast. The Alliance is calling for EU-wide reductions to farm antibiotic use: by 50% by 2020 and by 80% by 2050. As part of this, the Alliance is calling on the govt, food retailers and European policy makers to take urgent action.ref

Campaign: Supermarket Superbugs

Not only are the antibiotics making the diseases drug-resistant, but they're also masking disease in the animals - that means we are eating sick creatures. The crime is that none of this needs to happen. ref Webpage, Infographic, Video

How are the Supermarkets doing? ASOA's report shows major differences between leading UK supermarkets antibiotic policies - supermarkets have an enormous amount of influence on their supply chains. The report shows that far greater reductions in antibiotic usage are achievable if farming systems are used which focus on high animal health and welfare.[1]

Bans
routine use
CIAs
restricted
Colistin
banned
Monitors
use
Aldi
Asda Asda-Stores-2017.svg
Co-op Co-operative-Group.svg
Lidl Lidl-Stiftung.svg
M&S
Morrisons Morrisons.svg
Sainsbury's
Tesco Tesco.svg
Waitrose
† Critically Important Antimicrobials. See the World Health Organisation's list here.
‡ Colistin is a 50 year-old antibiotic that is increasingly being used as a "last-resort", when no other options are available.[2] However, researchers discovered in 2015 that it was beginning to fail due to over-use in animals.[3] Consequently, China banned its use.

Members

The Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics is made up of 63 supporting members which represent a further 500+ organisations. Our members span a wide range of medical, health, agricultural, environmental, consumer and animal welfare sectors from across the EU.ref

Articles

  • Nov.16.2018: Senior medics call on Government to ban preventative antibiotic group treatments of livestock. Coordinated by the Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics, the letter comes just weeks after the European Parliament voted by over 97% for new legislation which will ban preventative antibiotic treatments of groups of farm animals in the EU in 3 years' time. The govt says it supports the legislation but has repeatedly refused to endorse any ban on group prevention in the UK. “This should raise alarm bells about the kind of post-Brexit trade deal the UK may agree with the US, where antibiotics are used in enormous quantities in livestock". Worldwide, it is estimated that 73% of all antibiotics are used in livestock rather than in medicine. Most farm antibiotic use occurs in intensive farming systems. The European Food Safety Authority and the European Medicines Agency say we may need to phase out certain intensive farming systems where antibiotic use cannot be reduced sustainably. Soil Association.
  • Oct.2018: European Parliament votes to ban preventative mass medication. New legislation aimed at ending the overuse of antibiotics in farming has been approved by over 97% of the European Parliament today. The legislation will ban the preventative mass medication of groups of healthy animals, which has been used for decades to compensate for poor husbandry, low animal welfare and high levels of stress and disease in intensive farming. Unfortunately, the UK govt may choose to allow preventative mass medication to continue. The govt says the EU legislation does not bans preventative group treatments. The Veterinary Medicines Directorate claimed, incorrectly, that the legislation is ambiguous and does not restrict the administration preventative treatments to individual animals. Michael Gove said that the govt will “work constructively with stakeholders to agree how these restrictions can be implemented in practice”, which suggests that there is no guarantee the UK will ban preventative group treatments. Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics.
  • Sept.08.2018: Resistance to last-resort human antibiotic found in Food Standards Agency survey of retail meat. Resistance to the antibiotic Colistin, which is used as a last-resort for treating life-threatening infections in humans, has been found in E. coli from retail pork in a Food Standards Agency survey published this week. After colistin resistance was first found in retail meat and human infections in China and then throughout the world in 2015 and 2016, China banned colistin feed additives from use in livestock, but British and European authorities have refused to follow suit despite finding the resistance here. In the UK, the poultry industry has agreed a voluntary ban, but the pig industry continues to use it, although at greatly reduced levels. Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics.

References

  1. ^ New report shows some supermarkets tackling antibiotic misuse while others are not. “We have reached a critical point and must act now on a global scale to slow down antimicrobial resistance.” Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics, Nov.14.2017.
  2. ^ Colistin: an antibiotic of last resort. Animal and Plant Health Agency, Gov.uk, Nov.18.2016.
  3. ^ Apocalypse Pig: The Last Antibiotic Begins to Fail. Maryn McKenna, National Geographic, Nov.21.2015.