b'IntroductionThe majority of farmed animals in the UKIn recent years, animal farming has are reared intensively, inside crowded, filthybrought us outbreaks of BSE, bovine sheds which are the perfect environmentTB, foot and mouth, bird flu, swine flu, for bacteria and viruses to flourish. Stressedcampylobacter, salmonella and many by their surroundings and their inabilitymore devastating diseases. No wonder to display natural behaviours, forced tothe United Nations Food and Agriculture live in their own excrement alongside sickOrganization has warned that global and dying animals, it is not surprising thatindustrial meat production poses a serious farmed animals are vulnerable to infection.threat to human health 3 . Their immunity is further weakened by the industry breeding from just a fewCREATING ANTIBIOTIC high-yielding strains, which has led toRESISTANCEgenetic erosion. This makes it easier for disease to sweep swiftly through a groupInstead of protecting of animals, who are likely to share near- ourselves by changing identical genetics with little immunologicalhow we treat animals resistance. and ending the factory These factory farming systems which denyfarm conditions animals a life worth living also threatenthat make disease the health of the people who work onoutbreaks inevitable, we farms and in slaughterhouses, those whoadminister antibiotics consume animal products, and even thoseto the animals in an effort to keep them who dont. Diseases can be spread fromalive just long enough for them to be animals to people directly or via contactprofitable. Antibiotics are administered so with contaminated water or slurry, orfrequently that dangerous pathogens have through eating meat, milk or eggs. Somenow mutated and become resistant to diseases can then be passed from person tothem. Globally, more antibiotics are given to farmed animals than are used to treat person. More than 60 per cent of the almostpeople 4and this over-use is deadly.1,500 known human pathogens - biological agents that cause disease - are thought toThere were 61,000 antibiotic-resistant have originated in animals 1 , with three- infections in England in 2018, a nine quarters of emerging infectious diseasesper cent rise from the previous year 5 . also coming from animals 2 .Globally, drug-resistant diseases cause at 4'