Veterinarian ‘responsibility’: conflicts of definition and appropriation surrounding the public problem of antimicrobial resistance in France

Abstract

Over the past decade, veterinarians have been accused of being largely responsible for the overuse of antibiotics in livestock farming. Building on Gusfield’s theoretical perspective, I analyse how AMR can be conceived as a public problem and show how the French veterinary profession has been able to reframe it in such a way that veterinarians are no longer perceived as a threat but instead as protectors of public health. Based on interviews with political stakeholders and veterinary practitioners, as well as on a survey of the veterinary press, this article interprets the controversies that structure the AMR problem as conflicts of definition and appropriation with regard to the legitimate uses of antibiotics. Veterinarians have had to make significant compromises in order to reframe their responsibility and not lose control over the prescription and sale of antibiotics. This dynamic is the result of a three-stage process: firstly, veterinarian responsibility was conceived as a form of ownership where their authority to define the legitimate use of antibiotics was not contested; secondly, it was deemed to be a form of guilt whereby they were dispossessed of their legitimacy and capacity to act; thirdly, it was framed as a form of accountability where they were able to demonstrate their role as public health guardians. During this most recent stage - which corresponds to the present framework of the AMR problem - veterinarians have had to accept that the control and definition of legitimate uses of antibiotics needs to be distributed among a wider range of actors than was the case in the past.