Discussion of antimicrobial resistance in the environment and its implications for environmental regulators

The significance of the environment in the worldwide development of clinically relevant antimicrobial resistance is being more acknowledged. Most of those routes responsible for both the release of resistance-driving substances into the environment are monitored and controlled by environmental authorities (e.g., antimicrobials, metals, and biocides). As a result, environmental regulators would play an important role in the creation of global and national antimicrobial resistance action plans. The lack of environmental mitigation actions in current AMR action plans is argued to be a result of our lack of fundamental understanding of many of the key issues. Therefore, we'll look at the issue of AMR in the environment through the eyes of an environmental regulator, using the Environment Agency as an example to draw worldwide parallels. Provide many thought experiments to demonstrate how various mitigation methods could work. Conclusion: AMR Action Plans do not cover all potentially relevant AMR routes and causes in the environment; and AMR Action Plans are inadequate in part due to a lack of research to guide policy, which needs to be tackled.