19 November

More than 700 tonnes of antibiotics are imported into Australia every year. More than half of those antibiotics go into stock feed (column 2), nearly 10% is used by vets (column 3), and about 35% is used in the health system (column 1). Fruit trees are even sprayed with antibiotics to control infection. Agriculture is our biggest worry with antibiotic resistance. Not people. Agricultural practices that are so bad that they need to dose food with antibiotics to keep animals healthy is where mad cow disease came from. And a lot of these tonnes are used to just fatten animals, there isn't even a medical use. Also at a time when everybody is asked to consider the impact of eating meat on the environment, it doesn't hurt to have a look at the impact having pets has (https://www.worldwildlife.org/magazine/issues/spring-2016/articles/what-s-the-environmental-impact-of-pet-food). The numbers are pretty staggering. People seem to want productive animals off farms at the same time as they want pampered animals at home, and don't see the contradiction.