Ending the Use of Antimicrobial Growth Promoters Is Making a Difference

F eeding antibiotics to animals to make them grow faster has been common practice in intensive agricultural production systems since the late 1950s. In the 1980s, our professors told us that such growth promoters bore no resemblance to antimicrobials being used to treat patients, had no direct animal health effects, and were being used in such low doses that they could not influence the development of resistance. We were also told that their major effect was to shift microbial balances in the gut, enabling animals to use feed more efficiently. Little did we know how wrong our professors were. Nearly 20 years later in December 2002, the European Union (EU) member states agreed that, by January 2006, antimicrobials would no longer be permitted for use as growth promoters for food animals. The main reason for this action is to protect public health against the further development of antimicrobial resistance. What lies behind this dramatic change in attitude, and what will be the consequences—in the microbial world as well as in the animal kingdom?