World Consumers Rights Day (WCRD), on 15th March, is an annual occasion for celebration and solidarity within the international consumer movement. The theme for World Consumer Rights Day on 15 March, 2016 will be “Antibiotics off the menu” and Consumers International will be campaigning with Members around the world for fast food companies to make a global commitment to stop the sale of meat raised with the routine use of antibiotics important to human medicine. Antibiotic resistance is rising to dangerously high levels in all parts of the world. The World Health Organisation has warned that, without urgent action, we are heading for a post-antibiotic era, in which important medicines stop working and common infections and minor injuries can once again kill.
Growing antibiotic resistance is driven by over use of antibiotics. Despite worldwide concern about the overuse of antibiotics, their use in agriculture is due to increase by two thirds by 2030. Consumers have an important role to play in persuading food companies to make the changes that are needed to stop this global public health threat and protect our medicines for the future. The widespread practice of routinely dosing farm animals with antibiotics is contributing to this threat. Around half of the antibiotics produced globally are used in agriculture, with much of this being used to promote faster growth and to prevent, rather than treat the disease. Global restaurant chains can affect change faster than governments alone by using their purchasing power to hasten the phasing out of the practice of routinely administering farm animals with antibiotics used in human medicine. Antibiotic resistance occurs when bacteria become resistant to antibiotics. These resistant bacteria make many infections much harder to treat. Combined with a lack of new drugs, this constitutes a major public health risk this overuse is generating more antibiotic resistant bacteria. Resistant bacteria carried by farm animals can spread to humans through consumption of contaminated food, from direct contact with animals, or by environmental spread, for example in contaminated water or soil. The World Health Organization (WHO) is co-ordinating the international response through its Global Action Plan on Antimicrobial Resistance. Along with addressing over consumption of antibiotics in human medicine and promoting the development of new drugs, changes in farming practices are on the agenda of policy makers everywhere. Government action alone however will not be enough. Business, civil society and consumers will need to play a role. Multinational food businesses with global supply chains are in a position to drive changes faster than legislation alone. This day is an opportunity to promote the basic rights of all consumers, for demanding that those rights are respected and protected, and for protesting the market abuses and social injustices that undermine them. The fundamental aim of WCRD is to bring about important and needed benefits for consumers world wide. We intend to do so through inspiring and sensitising consumers on their basic consumer rights, which include:
• Right to safety
• Right to choose,
• Right to be heard,
• Right to healthy environment,
• Right to be informed,
• Right to consumer education
• Right to redress.
Furthermore, we encourage consumers to get involved in questioning the safety of food (meat) produced from animals (including birds) administered high doses of antibiotics and gain knowledge on health implications on antibiotics resistance. Farmers also have an important role to play by giving fewer antibiotics to animals.
Let us work in solidarity to combat antibiotic resistant bacteria, which travels across national boundaries in myriad ways. The aim of this theme is to curb the widespread over-consumption of antibiotics in human medicine and the use of antibiotics in Agriculture to promote faster growth of livestock rather than as a veterinary treatment. Indeed, about 50% of the world’s antibiotics is used in Agriculture, most of it to promote rapid growth and artificially quick fattening of chicken and other farm animals.
Many people are aware of the dangers of over-consumption of antibiotics in human medicine but few are aware that all the meats they consume at fast food outlets, as for example chicken, have been artificially grown and fattened by antibiotics and that when they eat such meats they are ingesting dangerous amounts of antibiotics resulting in their unwittingly developing resistance to antibiotics used medically.
It simply means that bacteria become resistant to the use of antibiotics. When antibiotics cannot act, simple infections such as strep throat, urinary tract infections, pneumonia, tuberculosis and gonorrhea become more difficult and sometimes impossible to treat.
If urgent action is not taken, we could be heading for a post-antibiotic era in which important medicines become ineffective and stop working. It is one of the biggest public health crises the world is beginning to face.
(Contributed by:- Dr. Dinesh, Member, State Commission , A&N Islands)