Day 114 - 04 Apr 95 - Page 43
1 using too much of the antibiotic, and that would take you
2 back to the fact that, why did he have to use that much,
3 because that would be an indication of bad husbandry.
4
5 It is a fact that if you have bad husbandry, it tends to
6 affect the whole community because we are talking about
7 zoonosis.
8
9 Q. Is there any human health concerns over the use of
10 tranquilizers in pig production?
11 A. I have seen the use of tranquilisers; there are two,
12 one is called stresnil and the other one is called
13 suicalm. I have seen them being used when pigs are being
14 moved, mixed in different groups to -----
15
16 Q. Can we ask you, is this a human health concern or is this
17 just a pig welfare concern?
18 A. Well, it is a concern because they are illicit usages.
19 If the tranquillizer, residue of the tranquillizer, which
20 might be applied very shortly before slaughter, if that got
21 into food for human beings, that would be a risk, but that
22 is not routinely checked for at the moment.
23
24 Q. What is your opinion on the prevalence of use of
25 tranquillizers?
26 A. It is very difficult for me to do more than guess.
27 I would say that a few farms use it fairly frequently, some
28 might use it occasionally if they have a particularly
29 stroppy batch of pigs.
30
31 Q. When a diseased pig or a number of diseased pigs are found
32 in a herd of pigs where the animal might require injection
33 of antibiotics, is the general response to treat just the
34 individual pig or is it to treat the whole herd?
35 A. Well, if it is injection you obviously have to do it
36 individually. Much of the treatment is done by putting the
37 antibiotic in the feed or in the drinking water. Now, the
38 disadvantage of putting it in the feed is that the animals
39 that are actually ill may have gone off their appetite
40 because they are feeling ill, so they will not eat very
41 much feed and nor will they get very much of the agent;
42 whereas, the others who are well will scoff up both the
43 feed and the agent.
44
45 So, farmers would tend to overtreat so that they can get
46 enough into the suffering pigs, of the inflicted pigs, and
47 this is a matter of again good or bad management. That is
48 one of the reasons, I think, another one, apart from the
49 non-observance of the withdrawal times, that contributes to
50 the high MRLs -- excessive MRLs.
51
52 Q. Do farmers consider sulphur drugs such as sulphadimidine to
53 be an antibiotic?
54 A. I found many farmers do not regard it as an
55 antibiotic. They will often tell you that they do not use
56 antibiotics, but you find they do use sulphur drugs because
57 they consider that it is a growth boosting product. That
58 is erroneous.
59
60 In the Swan Report which defined antibiotics, they are
