Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy (1997) 39, 435–439 Antimicrobial resistance—use in veterinary and human medicine

Dr Piddock’s leading article1 provides a useful summary of the various arguments and research on the complex subject of whether the use of antimicrobials in animal treatment can be linked to the undoubted, and worrying, rise of resistant organisms in human medicine. However, in attempting to put the available information into per-spective, a number of unmentioned factors also need to be considered. The first must be scale of use: detailed statistics are currently being compiled, but anecdotal evidence based on the sales value of antimicrobials in the UK indicates that use in human medicine could be as much as 20 times the amount used in all aspects of animal treatment— veterinary therapy for pets and farm animals as well as animal husbandry. Furthermore, although attention i