A text aimed at reducing the amount of antibiotics which end up on the consumer’s plate has just been voted on by a large majority in the European Parliament. According to MEPs, who voted on a draft regulation on veterinary drugs, antimicrobials “can not under any circumstances be used to improve the performance of farms or to compensate for non-compliance with good farming practices”.
Today, when an animal is sick in a farm, it is common to treat all the animals in prophylaxis, so that they do not fall ill in their turn. Meat treated with antibiotics then ends up on the consumer’s plate, ultimately causing an “antibiotic resistance”.
That is why MEPs asked to ban collective and preventive antibiotic treatment of animals and supported measures to encourage research into new drugs.
Antibiotic resistance: more deaths than cancer
“As the World Health Organization warns us that the world is at risk of slipping into a post-antibiotic era, where antimicrobial resistance would kill more than cancer each year, it was time to take strong action and seize the problem at the root “, declared the rapporteur of the vote, Françoise Grossetête.
“In particular, we want to ban the purely preventive use of antibiotics, restrict mass treatments to very specific cases, ban the veterinary use of antibiotics critical for human medicine or even put an end to the online sale of antibiotics, vaccines and psychotropic products. However, we must not reduce the therapeutic arsenal of veterinarians. This regulation is made to facilitate their work. It is absolutely necessary to encourage research and innovation in this sector “, added the MP.
Negotiations on the subject with member states should start by 2017.
When the Member States and Parliament have reached an agreement, the new regulations will apply within two years.
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