The emergence of antibiotic resistance as a serious problem in human medicine has prompted concerns about the public health implications of antibiotic use in agriculture. Treatment and prevention of disease Antibiotics, used responsibly, are an essential element in the fight against animal diseases caused by bacteria. However, in animals, as in humans, a significant proportion of those treated for infectious disease would recover without antibiotics.
Bacterial diseases cause pain, distress and economic loss.
Antibiotics reduce this suffering and distress and speed recovery in infected animals. Since the animal cannot be allowed to suffer the alternative is to kill the animal. The removal of antibiotics from veterinary medicine would cause great welfare problems. Antibiotics are sometimes used to prevent diseases that might occur in a herd or group of animals. In some situations when the proportion of animals suffering a disease during a defined time period reaches a threshold value, all animals in the herd or group are treated as the probability of most or all of the animals getting infected is high.