Why fluoroquinolone antibiotics in poultry should be banned

Fluoroquinolones are antibiotics classified by the World Health Organization as ‘critically important in human medicine’ due to their importance for treating infections such as Campylobacter, Salmonella and E. coli.

There have long been concerns that their introduction to veterinary medicine (in 1993 in the UK, and earlier in some EU countries) might undermine their effectiveness in human medicine. As a result, in 1998, a report on antimicrobial resistance published by the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee recommended that fluoroquinolones no longer be permitted for mass medication in farm animals, and be restricted to individual treatments only.