imu to prosper as antibiotics doomed

Chicken antibiotics 'must be revealed'

James Meikle


The food standards agency has told chicken producers, shops and supermarkets to own up to consumers when they have reintroduced growth-promoting antibiotics in the birds' food.
One in five companies have gone back on a much-trumpeted voluntary withdrawal by their industry. Although the antibiotics' use is allowed under European Union rules until 2006, they will then be banned because of fears that they might help speed the rate at which bacteria can develop resistance to drugs for humans and livestock.

Sir John Krebs, the agency's chairman, said that "on a precautionary basis antibiotics should not be used as growth promoters. Authenticity is important for both producers and consumers. People want to know that the food they buy is what it claims to be and producers want people to have confidence".

His remarks, which he had planned to make at the Cheltenham science festival on Wednesday, but accidentally omitted, were released by the agency yesterday as part of the text of the speech.

A spokeswoman added that the agency had fully supported the phasing out of growth promoters. "The decision has been taken in Europe. Really that is the end of the argument. Whether or not supermarkets act before regulation comes into being is a bonus. We were pleased with what the supermarkets did, but if they are going back on it, consumers have a right to know."

Some of the agency's advisers on animal feed are less pleased with the ban coming in by 2006. They feel animal welfare will suffer, and say farmers will not have time to develop other methods of livestock production.

Richard Young, policy adviser of the Soil Association, which exposed the continuing use of growth promoters in poultry despite the promise not to employ them, said: "To have the food standards agency fighting on the same side is a very big step forward."

The association is still challenging the legality of the way growth promoters are being used, saying farmers are employing them as medicines, not as feed additives.