A new study has linked the growing crisis of antibiotic-resistance to the overuse of antibiotics in agriculture. The paper, published ahead of the European Antibiotics Awareness Day on 18 November in the medical journal The Lancet, calls for immediate action in human and veterinary medicine. The report reveals that in some countries huge amounts of antibiotics are used in agriculture, aquaculture, and intensive farming - up to four times the amount used in human medicine. The scientists claim that any increase in antibiotic resistance in farm animals is likely to spread to humans since there is little separation of the types of antibiotic used in human beings and animals. The report recommends a worldwide ban on the use of antibiotics in healthy animals to promote growth or prevent disease. “The common goal should be to preserve the effect of antimicrobials for future generations of human beings, but also for animals. Antimicrobials should only be used when needed”, the report says. To this end, “health-orientated systems for rearing of animals” should be developed which do not rely on high levels of antibiotic use. The Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics, a campaign by the Soil Association, Compassion in World Farming and Sustain, welcomed the report. Tom MacMillan, director of innovation at the Soil Association, said: “This startling new report shows that the routine use of preventative antibiotics in farm animals is something that needs to be phased out for the good of both animals and humans.”