Canadian farms use three times the number of antibiotics in poultry, pigs and cattle than the European Union, says the Public Health Agency. New figures point to increased risk of antimicrobial resistance in humans, according to Blacklock's Reporter..“Surveillance is data for action,” said the Canadian Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance System Report. The Agency said “14,000 Canadian deaths were associated with antimicrobial resistance.”.Most antibiotics in Canada are used at farms not hospitals, said the report. “The quantity of medically important antimicrobials sold for use in production animals in Canada remains three times higher than the mean quantity reported by European countries,” it said..The Department of Health in 2017 amendments to Food And Drugs Regulations restricted the private import of antibiotics for use on poultry and livestock. Most farm antibiotics are used in animal feed..“Antimicrobials go into feed because that is the most logical way to treat a large number of animals,” Mary-Jane Ireland, then-director general of the health department’s veterinary drugs directorate, testified at 2017 hearings of the House of Commons health committee..“With the misuse and overuse producers are going to find fewer options and we’re trying to keep those options open,” said Ireland. “These are family farms and they need those treatment options.”.The federal amendments also required first-ever reporting on the volume of antibiotics sold by manufacturers and distributors. “Between 2019 and 2020 the quantity of medically important antimicrobials sold for use in all animals in Canada increased by 6.5%, from 980,000 to 1.05 million kilograms,” said Antimicrobial Resistance. “This was largely driven by sales of antimicrobials for production animals – farmed livestock, aquaculture and horses.”.The European Union has restricted antibiotics in farm production since 1997. The House of Commons health committee in a 2017 report expressed alarm over hospital deaths from untreatable superbugs. “It’s a big deal,” then-Liberal MP Bill Casey (Cumberland-Colchester, N.S.), chair of the committee, said at the time. “Some of the very best, most senior medical people in the country are really blowing the whistle on this alarming issue.”.“The experts I believe are pretty much 100% in agreement on the impact of reduced effectiveness of drugs and they are alarmed,” said Casey. “Some consider this the number one health issue we are facing in this country.”
