We take antibiotics for granted. We rely upon them to treat infections caused by bacteria. They’re among the most frequently prescribed drugs we take. But their use also creates opportunities for resistant bacteria to develop. This is why antibiotics should be prescribed only when they’re necessary. Like most, if not all, medications, their misuse has important, even life-threatening consequences.
Take, for example, the prescription of low-level doses of antibiotics for intensively farmed animals. These drugs are not to treat specific sick animals but entire populations of chickens or pigs. Antibiotics are routinely given because of their stressful, unsanitary, overcrowded and confined conditions. They’re often physiologically stretched to the limit to maximise productivity. In short, factory farmed animals are inevitably at high risk of infection.
The antibiotics are given as a pre-emptive move to prevent and control bacterial infections. If these animals were not kept in factory farms but instead outdoors in humane and sustainable conditions, this indiscriminate use of antibiotics would not be necessary.
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