Salmon aquaculture, Piscirickettsia salmonis virulence, and One Health: Dealing with harmful synergies between heavy antimicrobial use and piscine and human health comment on Avendano-Herrera (2021)

Dr. Avendano-Herrera's comments (Avendano-Herrera, 2021) on our review (Godfrey and Cabello, 2019) are mostly marginal to its content. They provide insufficient scientific evidence to weaken our hypothesis that Piscirickettsia salmonis is a potential opportunistic (facultative) pathogen/endogenous pathobiont of salmon. They also fail to undermine our review's central points, that infections caused by P. salmonis could be prevented by improved husbandry practices and that the excessive amounts of antimicrobials used in Chilean salmon aquaculture for their prevention/treatment are detrimental to the health of fish, other animals, humans and the environment.

Automated summary

Dr. Avendano-Herrera's comments on our review are mostly marginal and do not weaken our hypothesis. We believe that infections caused by P. salmonis can be prevented by improving husbandry practices, and that excessive use of antimicrobials is detrimental to health.