Will We Keep Antibiotics Effective? Yes, But the Globe Needs to Follow the EU and the UK

The substances we ingest can either nourish us or make us ill. Not long ago, I explored how food consumption influences the risk of colon cancer. However, what of agricultural practices?

Worldwide, we are observing the rise of cheap meat, primarily driven by demand from a growing middle class that finally can afford poultry and red meat, items that were previously out of reach. Roughly 45% of increased worldwide demand is taking place in nations with rising economies such as China, India, Brazil, Indonesia and the Philippines. Poultry is expected to capture an greater portion of that expansion, estimated to increase by 21% by 2034, since it is more affordable, culturally popular and requires fewer resources per kilogram compared with beef or pork. By 2034, it is estimated that poultry will provide 45% of the dietary protein consumed from all meat sources.

However this comes with consequences. With scarce acreage and intense time pressure, the approach in many countries has been to use antibiotics at scale. This isn’t just to address disease but also as a prophylactic to avoid sickness in crowded conditions. Furthermore, giving antibiotics makes livestock to gain weight more rapidly, even though scientists do not know the precise reason. All of this means that, unlike their use for humans—where antibiotics are almost always given to treat illness—their use in farming is much more widespread and indiscriminate. Studies monitoring their use suggest that 73% of all antibiotics distributed globally are used in livestock production.

This enormous overuse is causing a rise in antibiotic-resistant pathogens. For example, colistin resistance, a final-line treatment, initially emerged in E. coli microorganisms that then infected pigs. E coli was afterwards detected in pig farmers. All it takes are aeroplanes and global travel networks for these microbes to circulate worldwide. Currently, resistant strains have been discovered not only in hospitals in the Far East but around the globe.

How does this impact for someone sitting in a doctor’s office or a medical center in England or Scotland? It signifies that bacterial illnesses that were previously easily treatable—such as ear infections, UTIs or surgical site infections—become untreatable even after a course of antimicrobials. It means that surgeries such as C-sections, hip replacements and cancer therapies that rely on immune suppression all become more dangerous. Although novel antimicrobials are feasible to develop, the pipeline is lengthy and expensive. We must preserve the tools we have.

The remedies to this problem can exclusively come from changing global food production. Admittedly, the United Kingdom has made significant progress in curtailing antimicrobial use in livestock. Distribution of veterinary antimicrobials reared for food has declined by 59% over the past decade. The application of this last-resort drug is now virtually nonexistent. The employment of highest-priority antimicrobials has fallen to under 0.5% of all veterinary antimicrobial distribution. Moreover, research by several EU bodies indicated that after antibiotic use in farming was reduced by almost 50% between 2014 and 2021, antibiotic resistance in E. coli bacteria throughout Europe also began to decline.

But just concentrating on the UK or EU is a drop in the bucket. If the large middle-income countries are part of the conversation on how animal protein is farmed, we remain just as vulnerable to drug-resistant infections. The challenge is that moving towards alternative farming methods requires additional land and duration: making meat even more expensive in countries with large populations can rapidly cause public protests, political backlash and discontent. The medical necessity is clear, but this needs to be balanced with considerations of nutritional access, financial factors and consumer expectations.

Climate scientists have repeatedly cautioned about the environmental costs of the present worldwide agricultural model, whether it’s greenhouse gases, species decline, or deforestation. But these effects often feel distant and abstract, particularly for people facing financial strain or worried about short-term medical services.

Antibiotic resistance is tangible. Almost everyone has used antimicrobials at one time or another, and we can envision what would happen if their curative power was abruptly lost. Food production, medicine and climate are all interlinked. How pork is produced in China affects whether your offspring’s medication work in Edinburgh. Whether a woman in Nigeria survives a caesarean is tied to how chickens are raised in Brazil.

Unless we confront these widespread, global issues, such as how our food is produced and how we use our current medications, we endanger something invaluable: the ability to cure bacterial diseases that we take for granted now.