Verbatim report of proceedings

Wednesday, 24 October 2018 - Strasbourg

Authorisation and supervision of medicinal products for human and veterinary use - Veterinary medicinal products - Manufacture, placing on the market and use of medicated feed (debate)

  John Flack (ECR). – Mr President, it’s good that Parliament is today making the link between animal welfare and the use of veterinary medicines. It’s no wonder so many drugs are needed when 300 million animals a year live their whole lives in cages in the EU, perhaps only feeling the sun on their backs for the first time on the brief journey to the slaughterhouse, many never feeling grass beneath their feet in their short, sad, exploited lives.

This sort of industrial farming is only sustained by ever-more use of antibiotics – unnatural for the animal victims, injurious to human health, the by-products polluting the land and the air. Any decent human being must know in their heart that this sort of exploitation is wrong.

We, as politicians, have a duty to lead and to make the hard decisions people are reluctant to make for themselves. It’s about time we decide the endless cheap chase after cheap food and ever-higher yields must end. It’s about time we stopped corporate greed exploiting animals. I support these proposals.