ABSTRACT

In 2015, scientists at the South China Agricultural University carrying out routine surveillance of E. coli bacteria from farm animals noticed a major increase in resistance to a little-known and highly toxic antibiotic called colistin. Antibiotic growth promoters were legalised in the US by the Food and Drug Administration in 1951, and in 1953 the Therapeutic Substances Prevention of Misuse Act also made them legal in the UK. Unfortunately, much as Fleming had warned, the emergence of antibiotic resistance in farm animals occurred almost as soon as the antibiotics began being used. Although human antibiotic use is widely recognised as the main cause of antibiotic resistance in most human infections, the extent to which antibiotic use in livestock can also result in resistance in human infections has long been controversial. The World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) says that 110 countries have little or no regulations governing farm antibiotic use.