Perhaps the most newsworthy item out of a Toronto
conference, which has brought together a couple hundred animal health industry
people to talk about the issue of bacteria resistant to penicillin and a wide range
of other modern drugs is that “they are working on it.”
They are not going to wrap this event up Wednesday with a
firm plan of action — a silver bullet strategy — , but I think everyone will go
home with a renewed commitment to do a better job in their particular area of
interest whether they be government regulators, farmers, veterinarians, animal
health product manufacturers, drug distributors, feed mills or who ever.
Talk about a multi-pronged issue – trying to get a handle on
the subject at the Antimicrobial Stewardship in Canadian Agriculture Conference
is like trying to grab mud with your bare hands.
It is my impression that, yes everyone agrees there are more
drug-resistant strains of bacteria and other organisms out there today, and
vigilance and good management practices —good stewardship — is needed to
minimize or perhaps prevent the development of these so-called “superbugs”, but
the challenge is to get everyone pulling in the same direction at the same time
toward this goal.
It is a complex issue. Just in Canada alone you have
thousands of farmers with millions of animals (poultry, cows, horses, sheep,
dogs and cats), several animal health manufacturers, dozens of distributors, a
federal and provincial levels who all need to be singing in tune from the same
song sheet. And then when you add in the complication that it is really an
international issue, well, it begins to sound overwhelming.
But before everyone goes all organic, there are a few points
to be made:
– Canadian
job.
– Yes,
there are more antibiotic and/or antimicrobial resistant strains of bacteria developing.
That is a concern that needs to be addressed, but the issue isn’t at a crisis
level that threatens to shutdown livestock production, anymore than herbicide
resistant weeds are poised to shut down crop production.
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