The Royal College of Physicians (RCP) has joined the Alliance to Save our Antibiotics, which represents organisations from across Europe spanning the health, medical, and environmental sectors. Other members include the Royal College of Pathologists, UK Faculty of Public Health, European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases and the European Public Health Alliance.
The contribution of farm antibiotic use to human resistance is widely recognised and the Alliance works to raise the profile of the issues around the routine use of antibiotics and related drugs in farmed animals, to conduct research and meta-analyses of the available science within the field of microbiology, and to provide policy recommendations to inform UK and EU action on this issue.
Earlier this year RCP president Professor Jane Dacre joined 50 health and scientific leaders from across Europe including Baroness Hollins (chair, British Medical Association Board of Science) and Dr Jeremy Farrar (director, Wellcome Trust) in calling for an EU ban on the routine, preventative mass medication of healthy farm animals.
