Transgressing the Intersection between Antibiotics and Food Production via Animal Health Management

• In Event: Transgressing the Intersection of Science and Food II

Abstract

The use of antibiotics in food animals has long been a matter of concern on account of the potential implications for the rise and spread of antimicrobial-resistant (AMR) infections. Since the late 1990s, European policy frameworks in this domain have been predominantly framed around a need to curtail the animal-agricultural use of antibiotics which are critical in human medicine. These frameworks have in turn been resisted by actors mobilising arguments about scientific uncertainty of the kind familiar to STS scholars in a wide variety of cases. In this paper, we seek to problematise conventional policy framings of the relationship between antibiotics, food animals and AMR health concerns which effectively narrow the terms of discussion to science alone (as Martin 2005 has shown in the US context). We argue that these framings produce a dichotomy between, on the one hand, scientific studies of resistance in the environment, and on the other, policy efforts to promote animal antibiotic stewardship in the interests of human health. In the process, the potential significance of AMR and antibiotic use for animal health in its own right, and the role of knowledge-practices in the diagnosis, treatment and management of animal disease are marginalised. Drawing on empirical findings from ethnographic work shadowing veterinarians, farm staff and scientists associated with a UK dairy farm, we unpack the reasons why attention to the mundane aspects of animal disease management could help open up new avenues for understanding and intervening in the space of antibiotic stewardship in food production.

Authors

• Richard Helliwell, University of Nottingham

• Sujatha Raman, The Australian National University

• Carol Morris, University of Nottingham