Ampicillin was introduced to the British market in 1961. By 1962, there were outbreaks of disease caused by strains of Salmonella typhimurium resistant to the antibiotic. A new study shows that the use of penicillin on farms from the 1950s gave the bacteria a head start. A team at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, France, looked at samples of S. typhimurium collected from people, livestock, food and feed between 1911 and 1969. From the announcement:
“Our findings suggest that antibiotic residues in farming environments such as soil, waste water, and manure may have a much greater impact on the spread of resistance than previously thought”, says Dr Francois-Xavier Weill, who led the study.
When are we going to see real action on this?