It's interesting that governments are aware of the threat, but they don't take any action against the root cause, which is inappropriate, nonmedical antibiotic uses, particularly with livestock and poultry.
I don't think people understand how much this matters. If you were an evil genius and wanted to destroy Earth's antibiotics, there would almost be no better way than to mass feed it to animals that can have diseases jump to humans. It's the number one reason I'm vegan.
It's even more astonishing that a reputable news organization like the BBC would do a story on it and not mention livestock. It would be like doing a story on global warming and not mentioning carbon emissions.
Why would I want to do that? No need to get a vet involved when you know what you're doing. It's not like I used it as a feed additive for growth stimulation (which is a horrible practice, in my opinion).
Sorry, I thought you just implied your feed store was illegally dispensing antibiotics without prescriptions. Maybe you know what you're doing, but that does not imply that everyone else is.
I certainly didn't have a prescription. As best as I can tell, the linked article above states the FDA wants manufacturers to voluntarily label their products as prescription-only, which will presumably reduce indiscriminate selling and use of such antibiotics. They threaten a mandatory change in regulations if the problem remains.
I know antibiotics are a public health problem, but I'd personally be pissed if I needed to pay extra for the drugs and a vet's involvement for such a simple thing. We're talking $6 or so for the meds I mentioned earlier. How much does the average farm vet house call cost? Beats me, but I'm not anxious to find out, and it might be better to put down an animal than shoulder such expense.
The FDA (or maybe that would be the USDA?) would be better off to simply ban sale of animal products with any measurable trace of antibiotics. Period. That would certainly cause a major upset in the industry as we know it, but the living conditions of commercially-raised meat animals is appalling and could use the change.
It's not quite as simple as your making it out to be. It would be reasonable to ban any and all use of antibiotics on livestock for any reason. If instead of an outright ban you dramatically increased the cost you get similar benefits and still allow for edge cases.
PS: There is a finite amount of discoverable antibiotics FOR ALL TIME. Without a long term replacement or human extinction any and all systimatic use of antibiotics on animals will lead to significant human casualties (as in millions to billions of human lives.) Granted most of these people have not been born yet but it's way more important than a lot of other hot button issues.
It has been an established medical principle since 400BC that letting people die now to save others (whether more or less) in the future would never, ever, under any circumstance, be considered valid medical practice.
Besides, many say it's too late. Resistance genes are in the wild and bacteriophages will spread them. Nothing can prevent that. Banning it's use on livestock at this point will most likely be an exercise in futility, like shooting the evil queen after eating the poisoned apple.
In order to kill the resistance of the existing bugs we'd need to start letting people die from both kinds of bacteria, resistant ones and non-resistant ones, so that the energy efficiency the non-resistant ones gain very slowly wins out over the advantage of treatment resistance that the resistant ones have. If any small subset of humans for any reason deviates from this, it negates the effects, so effectively you cannot have even a small country disagree. Nor can you get away with only treating the rich. Not for a year or two, but likely for centuries. And even when that does happen, you still have to limit usage of the drugs.
Please note that it isn't necessarily so bad. Viruses have won the resistance battle against medication decades ago, and aside from a few incidents, effects have been relatively limited. There has not been an even medium-scale pandemic. But there are quite a few viruses where getting infected means it's curtains, and no treatment is possible. One particularly scary one is rabies. Fortunately, inoculation still mostly works, with only a few exceptions (like HIV).
You have no idea what your talking about. First off Antibotics have never worked on Viruses, full stop.
Second it's not an all or nothing story. We use far more antibiotics on Animals than people and that's a huge issue because it's eroding effectiveness not simply creating a single super bug that will now rule for all time.
On the other hand, the BBC did air an excellent Horizon episode last year, "Defeating the Superbugs" [1], which did cover the livestock angle in detail.
Cramming loads of animals together and pumping them with antibiotics is probably widespread farming procedure by now.
I would imagine changing this will require some effort.
Not to mention this will prolly raise the price of your favourite horse, errm.. beef burger at the local supermarket. :-)
We vote with every purchase, we can help by not buying meat that uses antibiotics (natural/organic/etc), and by not taking antibiotics unless the doctor strongly recommends. I tell my doctor straight up that I do not want meds unless necessary for my health and safety. I do not trust the pharmaceutical industry one bit, I personally believe that they create as many problems as they solve.
My understanding is that antibiotic usage in cows is that it significantly increases their growth rate given the livestock feed we use by altering their gut flora to utilize the nutrients better. If MRSA became resistant to whatever antibiotic they use, I don't think it would alter agricultural practice since that's not what they're using it for.
I could be wrong since this is way out of my areas of interest, but AFAIK it has nothing to do with fighting off infections.
Cattle don't need flora to digest grains. They never ate grain in their evolutionary past, only grass. Their flora doesn't process it- which is why E. coli takes over.
The majority of cattle which end up in a grocer, convenience store, or restaurant spent most of their life completely infested with E. coli. Right up to the point of being thrown into the grinder.
They are raised in unsanitary conditions and antibiotics reduce the infections. Watch the documentary Food Inc. for a good overview of how screwed up the US meat industry is
Food Safety News is a rag published by a personal injury law firm (Marler Clark). When foodborne illness outbreaks occur and people get sick, the firm profits.
I wouldn't read that article as serious journalism.
Is there a factual claim made you take issue with? I'm having trouble understanding how the sponsorship of a personal injury law firm discredits what's said in the piece. Are you implying that these lawyers actually believe antibiotic use in livestock to be harmful to humans, but publicly state otherwise to get customers?
You're generalising US practice globally. In the EU, antibiotic use in livestock is strictly regulated. Antibiotics can't be used as a feed additive and can't be used prophylactically. The parliament is currently debating a complete ban on the agricultural use of several "last resort" antibiotics that are important in the treatment of drug-resistant infections. Even China are banning the use of antibiotics as a growth promoter.
It's not only the use of antibiotics for livestock. In Russian prisons for example TB is a big problem, but there isn't enough money to give every patient the full antibiotic treatment. This results in a patient getting antibiotics for a few days and then the treatment stops before the TB is fully healed. Those are ideal conditions for TB to become resistant against antibiotics. I am sure similar things are happening elsewhere where there is a lack of funding. I am also pretty sure tat so e patients think they are cured and decide to stop treatment premarturly, resulting in the same problem.
Link to the Russian prison problem: http://microbewiki.kenyon.edu/index.php/Tuberculosis_in_Russ...
People who work in the goverment know about the threat but they in of themselves can not solve it.
Someone has to formulate a specific policy and then get it through the House/Senate sub-committee if they want funding. In a period where there is a strong tide against all goverment spending and some very anti-science people that are key in the process I'm not hopeful that a solution will come up soon.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/17/opinion/antibiotics-in-liv...