Antibiotic use in food fuels resistance to vital drugs – report

Review on antimicrobial resistance warns that antibiotic use on animals outweighs that on humans in many countries, posing great health risk

The use of antibiotics in agriculture is fuelling drug resistance and must be cut back or even banned where they are important for humans, a report commissioned by David Cameron has warned.

The Review on Antimicrobial Resistance said global use of antimicrobials in food production at least matched that by humans, extending even to the widespread application in some areas of "last resort" antibiotics for humans - which cannot be replaced when ineffective - to animals.