Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-10-26-Speech-3-288-000"
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"en.20111026.20.3-288-000"2
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Mr President, President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety here in the European Parliament, in the ‘citizens’ chamber’ of the European Union, is tabling a motion for a resolution in order to raise awareness of the threat to public health caused by the resistance of bacteria to antibiotics and to call on the Commission and the Member States to establish an action programme to combat this threat to public health. I am the Chair of the committee, not the author of this resolution, and you can see that we had sponsors from all political parties. We are in agreement in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety that we have a ticking time bomb here, a major problem for the health of our citizens, and that there is an urgent need for action. We need an action plan, because the health authorities in Europe are alarmed. During visits this year to the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in London and also to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) in Stockholm, our attention was once again drawn by these specialist agencies of the European Union to this problem in particular.
In the EU, around 25 000 people a year are now dying of infections caused by resistant bacteria. If we look at the situation, up to the end of the 1970s there was a great deal of activity in the pharmaceuticals industry aimed at developing new molecules and new agents. Since the end of the 1970s, the activity has diminished and come to a standstill. So, if you like, we stopped focusing on this problem 40 years ago. We are simply lacking new agents to fight this resistance. Commissioner Dalli, at this point the first demand that I am going to make is directed at you as the Commissioner responsible, and it is a call on the Commission to draw up a road map with the industry concerned in order to show more commitment to the search for and development of new molecules and new agents. Together with the actors involved in research and industry, you should draw up this road map so that we can obtain a new protection mechanism.
We have mentioned a second issue, with regard to which we would ask you – as well as the Member States – to be actively engaged. Antibiotics help to reduce diseases, but if they are not used properly they can also cause damage. We have discovered that antibiotics are used entirely differently in the 27 Member States of the European Union. The Eurobarometer survey has shown how much ignorance there is. Of the people questioned, 53% believe that antibiotics kill viruses and 43% believe that antibiotics are effective against colds and flu. We can imagine how great the misuse of these substances must be, which then contributes to the resistance and puts other people at risk. We are therefore calling on the Commission to define general principles and best practices for the prudent use of antibiotics for 500 million people, for all 27 Member States, and also to ensure that these guidelines are actually implemented and put into practice everywhere in the European Union. We need a major awareness campaign in this area.
We believe that we also need a well-functioning monitoring and surveillance system in this sector. The ECDC in Stockholm is our sectoral authority. We need good data, sound surveys and, of course, also analyses of trends and early warnings of the spread of such resistance.
Ladies and gentlemen, there is one final issue that we have addressed in a serious way: the cross-transmission of resistance from animals to humans. Antibiotics are used in veterinary medicine as well as human medicine. There are strong indications that crossovers exist. That means that we need cooperation with veterinary medicine in this regard, above all in order to reduce and prohibit the prophylactic use of antibiotics in intensive livestock farming.
In this regard, Commissioner, I hope that our resolution will also serve as a mandate for you as well as for the Polish Presidency to take action so that we can protect our citizens against this new threat to health."@en1
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