Fiona Harvey - India's farmed chickens dosed with world's strongest antibiotics
Chickens raised
in India for
food have been dosed with some of the strongest antibiotics known to medicine,
in practices that could have repercussions throughout the world. Hundreds of tonnes of
an “antibiotic of last resort” – only used in the most extreme cases of
sickness - are shipped to India each year to be used, without medical
supervision, on animals that may not require the drugs but are being dosed with
them nevertheless to promote the growth of healthy animals.
Routine use of some of
the strongest antibiotics, which doctors have said should be preserved for the
most extreme cases lest resistance to them should increase and prevent their
use for the diseases for which they are intended, is now a common practice in
farming in the developing world. The consequences will be felt throughout the
world because resistance to strong antibiotics is spread among organisms. Germs with qualities
that can make them dangerous to humans will, if untreated or poorly treated,
mutate into more powerful pathogens that are resistant to treatment. Poor or
inadequate public heath treatments assists this process, potentially spreading
pathogens around the world.
A
study by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism has found that
hundreds of tonnes of colistin, described as an antibiotic of last resort, have
been shipped to India for the routine treatment of animals, chiefly chickens,
on farms. The finding is
concerning because the use of such powerful drugs can lead to an increasing
resistance among farm animals around the world. Colistin is regarded as one of
the last lines of defence against serious diseases, including pneumonia, which
cannot be treated by other medicines. Without these drugs, diseases that were
commonly treatable in the last century will become deadly once again.
