The overuse of antibiotics in intensive animal farming drives antimicrobial resistance, threatening both human and animal health. Understanding this link illuminates why welfare reform is also a public health imperative.
The link between intensive animal farming, antibiotic overuse, and antimicrobial resistance reveals a systemic failure that harms animals and humans simultaneously. Crowded, stressful conditions in factory farms create reservoirs of disease that require ongoing antibiotic treatment to maintain production — not to improve animal welfare, but to prevent catastrophic losses in systems whose conditions guarantee disease. This cycle of stress, disease, and antibiotic treatment represents a welfare harm compounded by a public health risk. Higher-welfare farming systems that reduce crowding, provide enrichment, and improve hygiene naturally reduce disease pressure and antibiotic need. Welfare reform and antibiotic stewardship are not competing priorities — they are the same priority expressed differently.