Antibiotics have been around for hundreds of thousands of years – no, we didn’t know that either! They are harmful to bacteria, and without them we would have a world where life is much harder.

But in recent decades, overuse of antibiotics has led to the rise of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). This evolutionary response has been accelerated as humans have developed more and more antibiotics – leading to a biological arms race.

Dr Oskar Nyberg, from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and Dr Patrik Henriksson, from Leiden University and the Stockholm Resilience Centre, are part of a project looking into the effects of antibiotics in the food system on humans and the animals involved.

We take a deep dive into Thai shrimp farming (and contrast them with the shrimp living in Morecambe Bay), learn more about aquaculture, and ecotoxicology in the marine environment, consider how long it takes and what conditions are needed to raise a shrimp (they do not eat sausages), discover how you measure how much antibiotics are in a shrimp (something that many farmers do not know themselves), and discuss why the drugs are used and how you can avoid needing them in the first place.

Oskar and Patrik tell us more broadly about superbugs, the regulations and protections in place for using antibiotics in farming, and the differences between human and animal treatments.

Plus, Paul’s aversion to penicillin, Oskar’s history in the culinary industry, and why is Patrik in a German beer garden?

Discover more about the Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) Keystone project: https://seabos.org/anti-microbial-resistance-amr-keystone-project/

Episode Transcript