Abstract (EN)

Several studies have shown the link between the massive use of antibiotics in agriculture since the 1950s and the development of intensive livestock farming. The technical and economic organisation of farms and food chains has favoured the use of these medicines, whether for therapeutic purposes to respond to the emergence of diseases specific to industrial farming conditions, or for zootechnical purposes to optimise animal growth. Few studies, however, have looked at the veterinary drug market as such and questioned how its structure has also been decisive in the way antibiotics are prescribed, sold and used. This paper proposes to do this on the basis of the French case. The 1975 Veterinary Pharmacy Act is known to have significantly reorganized the drug market by establishing a professional monopoly of veterinarians on prescribing and dispensing. But beyond the strengthening of a professional jurisdiction (and, atthe same time, the legitimization of the knowledge and practices of the veterinary profession in the field of animal health), the 1975 law also encouraged the development of an economic model that places drugs at the heart of it. Indeed, French veterinarians specialising in industrial livestock farming have, in a logic of intra-professional competition, gradually abandoned the invoicing of their acts to their clients, to be paid only through the sale of medicines. Some have also developed distribution companies in order to position themselves on the wholesale market. This particular structure of the veterinary drug market is an important factor for the massive use of antibiotics, as it has gradually become the main source of income for the veterinary profession.