Faced with the proliferation of resistant bacteria, the European Parliament has proposed a bill aimed at restricting the use of antibiotics in farms.
Development of resistant bacteria, traces of drugs on consumers’ plates, etc. The European Parliament has decided to react by voting by a large majority in favor of limiting the use of antibiotics on farms.
“As the World Health Organization warns us that the world is at risk of sliding into a post-antibiotic era, where antibiotic resistance would kill more people than cancer each year, it was time to take strong action and seize the problem at the root ”, declared rapporteur Françoise Grossetête, French LR MP in Parliament.
Too systematic preventive treatments
For MEPs, these drugs “can not under any circumstances be used to improve performance or to compensate for non-compliance with good breeding practices”. The European Medicines Agency should communicate a list of exceptional circumstances for which they could be used preventively, under the justification of a veterinarian.
Currently, it is not uncommon to treat an entire herd when only one animal is sick. This practice will also be supervised. Treatments will be limited to “clinically sick animals and animals identified as presenting a high risk of contamination,” the project specifies.
Foster innovation
It also leaves room for maneuver for states to limit or ban the use of antimicrobials if such use poses a critical risk to humans, or if specific national regulations encourage prudent use.
“However, we must not reduce the therapeutic arsenal of veterinarians, added Françoise Grossetête. This regulation is made to facilitate their work. It is absolutely necessary to encourage research and innovation in this sector ”.
This is the other part of the project. The legislation aims to “encourage and protect innovation, reduce bureaucracy and relax certain marketing procedures” for antibiotics to facilitate the fight against epizootics.
At least wait until 2019
The project has yet to be negotiated with the member states of the European Union. The debates, which will probably not begin until 2017, promise to be lively. Some states whose agriculture relies on intensive livestock production could oppose overly restrictive restrictions. Once adopted, the legislation is not expected to be applicable until 2019 or 2020.
The European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) recently warned of the growing resistance to ciprofloxacin from the bacteria campylobacter, responsible for serious food poisoning in humans, and therefore increasingly complicated to treat.
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