Abstract
Antibiotics have played a significant yet ambivalent role in Western livestock husbandry. Mass introduced to agriculture to boost animal production and reduce feed consumption in the early 1950s, agricultural antibiotics were soon accused of selecting for bacterial resistance, causing residues and enabling bad animal welfare. The dilemma posed by agricultural antibiotic regulation persists to this day. This essay traces the history of British antibiotic regulation from 1953 to the influential 1969 Swann report. It highlights the role that individual experts using bacteriophage typing played in warning about the mass selection for bacterial resistance on farms and the response of a corporatist system, whose traditional laissez-faire arrangements struggled to cope with the risk posed by bacterial resistance. In addition to contextualizing the Swann report's origins, the essay also discusses the report's fate and implications for current antibiotic regulation.
Highlights
Mass introduced to agriculture to boost animal production and reduce feed consumption in the early 1950s, agricultural antibiotics were soon accused of selecting for bacterial resistance, causing residues and enabling bad animal welfare
318 claas kirchhelle antibiotic use has an equal number of disadvantages: it can cover up bad animal husbandry, and residues in food and the environment can create or trigger antibiotic allergies.[1]
When Herbert Williams Smith was invited to give evidence in June 1960, he presented new data on the spread of antibiotic resistance to humans: in one survey, 88.3 percent of Staphylococcus aureus isolates from the noses of veterinary surgeons and farmers were penicillin-resistant
Summary
The heads of the respective factions, Robert Fraser Gordon (veterinarian) and Raphael Braude (animal nutritionist), clashed on the relative costs and benefits of low-dosed AGPs. When Herbert Williams Smith was invited to give evidence in June 1960, he presented new data on the spread of antibiotic resistance to humans: in one survey, 88.3 percent of Staphylococcus aureus isolates from the noses of veterinary surgeons and farmers were penicillin-resistant.
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