Campaigners against water pollution are claiming that factory farming is responsible for filling rivers with antibiotic-resistant bacteria which poses a risk to human health.
According to The Times:
Opening a possible new front in the battle against water pollution, the results of tests by a science laboratory imply that the use of medicines on intensive farms contributes to the spread of antimicrobial resistance (AMR).
Last week, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said AMR infections were estimated to kill 35,000 people a year in the EU alone.
Scant testing for superbugs has taken place on rivers in England and Wales to date. However, Fera Science and the Alliance to Save our Antibiotics took 48 water and sediment samples from rivers near 12 pig and poultry farms in the Wye Valley and southeast Norfolk.
Indicators of resistance — including in E. coli and Staphylococcus aureus, the pathogens behind the highest numbers of deaths associated with antibiotic resistance — were found across the sites, along with two genes linked to AMR.
Signs of resistance were higher downstream than upstream of five of eight intensive farms, which could implicate the antibiotics in use on those farms. By comparison, tests showed no difference either upstream or downstream from four free-range or organic farms.
“There does seem to be a lot of resistance, which is of relevance to human health in the environment near these farms,” said Cóilín Nunan, scientific adviser to the Alliance to Save our Antibiotics, a group funded by organic farming and animal welfare organisations.
“This is definitely going to help the spread of resistance back to humans and animals,” he said, giving the example of river water used to irrigate crops near by. Swimmers were also seen at one site tested, so people could swallow the water too.
The new tests may now put the focus on the use of antibiotics on those intensive farms. UK sales of such antibiotics have fallen by 55 per cent since 2014 and last year reached their lowest level to date.
Nunan, however, would like to see a ban on the preventative use of antibiotics (before animals show signs of illness), which the EU has put in place but the UK has not.
