The EU has announced plans to allocate €2 million (£1.7m) to a pilot scheme researching homeopathy and phytotherapy (use of extracts from natural origin as medicines or health-promoting agents) for use on livestock. The proposed research is in response to growing concern over antimicrobial use in the EU. image expired

Proposed funding for the research project was approved on Monday in an amendment to the EU’s draft budget approved by the European Parliament’s Agriculture Committee. The move has sparked controversy among conservative MEPs, who branded it “sheer madness.” However, exponents want further research into treatments which may reduce antimicrobial use in the community and therefore lessen the risk of resistant bacteria developing.

Richard Ashworth, Conservative MEP for the South East, said, “Spending such a huge sum of public money on something so marginal and left-field would be bad at the best of times. When we are in the middle of an economic crisis, when Governments everywhere are taking severe austerity measures just to balance the books, to waste millions on highly questionable new-age remedies for cows and sheep is sheer madness.”

Homeopathy is the use of low dosages of a bacterium to cure an infection and is already used fairly commonly to treat conditions including mastitis in dairy cattle. Phytotherapy, medicines made from herbs or plants, treats conditions such as lameness or animal flu.

Although European conservatives have been quick to slam the proposal, some have welcomed the increase in research spending. Harvey Locke, president of the British Veterinary Association, said that, although the association does not currently endorse such treatments, allocating more funding to research was a welcome gesture.

He elucidated, “Whilst it is unlikely that €2 million will be able to determine whether or not there is a basis for claiming homeopathic products can work, we welcome European investment in veterinary research and hope that the results of the pilot will be useful.”  

The draft budget still requires approval from the budget committee and must be voted on by the European Parliament before any money can be spent.