Responsible use in poultry rather than antibiotic-free

Dr. Peter Spring, of the Bern University of Applied Sciences, said striving for responsible antibiotic use may be a better strategy than going 100 percent antibiotic-free. With its decade-old ban on growth-promoting antibiotics, the European experience may provide some insights for American poultry producers ahead of the imposition of the United States’ own rule changes on antibiotic use.  While the continent switched its production practices, not every country established a robust program to monitor treatment of animals, use of certain medications and development of anti-microbial resistance. In 2008, two years after the EU ban on all antibiotic-growth promoters, The European Commission – the EU’s executive body -- asked for harmonization of surveillance programs for collecting data on antimicrobial sales and usage.  Spring said monitoring programs are important to understanding how well the antibiotic bans are actually effecting the level of treatment birds are receiving and help health officials and farmers know who’s using what. Additionally, the monitoring programs help determine whether antibiotic use and antimicrobial resistance are linked.  Spring said producers felt like the 2006 ban meant they were safe from resistance issues, but antimicrobial resistance actually increased in the years following the ban. The development of monitoring programs throughout Europe was needed to get a better grasp on what may be contributing to the resistance problem. Not having the monitoring systems set up when the ban was enacted was a mistake, he said.  Denmark is often mentioned in studies about European antibiotic use and antimicrobial resistance because the country established a monitoring program before many of its peers, he said.  Many other countries have followed the Danish example since then.