Antibioticresistance amongst haemolytic staphylococci isolated from bovine milk samples in New Zealand

Abstract

Extract

In recent years concern has been expressed over potential hazards arising from the administration of antibiotics to food-producing animals. Particular attention has already been given in the United Kingdom to bovine milk as a source both of antibiotic residues and of resistant staphylococci that could possibly endanger humans. The Milk and Milk Products Technical Advisory Committee suggested in 1963 that “as a result of treatment with penicillin, strains of penicillin-resistant staphylococci that cause bovine mastitis are alleged to be increasingly common.” In 1968 the British Government set up a joint committee on the use of antibiotics in animal husbandry. The committee has defined the pre-sent and prospective uses of antibiotics in animal husbandry and veterinary medicine and has been particularly concerned with the phenomenon of infective drug resistance. In the U.S.A., the Food and Drug Administration established a committee on the veterinary, medical and non-medical uses of antibiotics. The potential hazards cited by the committee were those of allergic reactions in sensitized human patients, the premature exposure of humans to antibiotics that may later be required for their treatment, and the possibility of human infection by animal-derived, antibiotic-resistant micro-organisms (Goddard, 1968).