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Why Is It Still Legal to Use Human Antibiotics on Farm Animals?
- rl3 11y agoBecause large agribusiness doesn't actually care if people become ill and die of things like MRSA as a result.
- Qantourisc 11y agoAny other industry and we'd be calling boycotts. Get EU meat only ? http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-05-1687_en.htm http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-05-1687_en.htm
- Qantourisc 11y agoEDIT: DISCLAIMER: See a doctor, don't take this as advise ! “You should never give an antibiotic to anybody, human or animal, unless they’re ill,” IIRC that is even wrong ! You shouldn't be using antibiotics unless you have good change to get severely sick or develop (long term, or very bad short term) complications (holes in body due to infection, septicemia, ... )
- code_sterling 11y agoNo, when you have a bacterial infection, you need antibiotics. You can easily die from a tooth infection, if not treated. The issue is with prescribing antibiotics to viral sufferers because doctors want to get to the he next patient.
- Qantourisc 11y ago"You can easily die from a tooth infection, if not treated." That would fall under the "long term complication", dead is a bit of a big complication to most.
- code_sterling 11y agoBeing dead is the complication of an unmitigated bacterial infection.
- staunch 11y agoHonest mistake but you shouldn't give medical opinions on public forums unless you're a licensed medical doctor. You might convince some poor sap to wait until they're septic to see a doctor. As someone that's been on IV antibiotics, I can tell you that there's no fucking around with bacterial infections and only a doctor (an infectious disease specialist) can evaluate the situation properly.
- Qantourisc 11y agoQuestion: Any bacterial foothold should be considered dangerous ?
- jfb 11y agoA person who is sick is not competent to be deciding on a course of treatment, unless they are, say, Paul Farmer. See a doctor; follow the doctor's advice.
- illivah 11y agoThey're better than average, but you have to be willing to question what they say. I know too many people who just trusted the doctor and then had the doctor make some minor slip-up that the patient would have caught. Except "minor" means "well, I guess you're this way for life now. sorry".
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- code_sterling 11y ago“Let’s put it simply: would you rather have meat from an animal that was sick during its lifetime or one that was healthy?” This if a false dichotomy. The only thing at risk is profit margin.
- mirimir 11y agoThere are two primary use cases for antibiotics in livestock management. One, treating animals with serious bacterial infections, is at least somewhat defensible. The other is purely profit-driven: low-level treatment increases feed efficiency. And long-term low-level treatment effectively selects for antibiotic resistance. Anyway, I'd rather eat meat from animals that had been sick, as opposed to meat contaminated with antibiotic-resistant pathogenic bacteria. Edit: I wrote "somewhat defensible" because it's my impression that antibiotics serve as low-cost mitigation for overcrowding, poor hygiene, and other deficiencies in livestock management.
- Qantourisc 11y agoWell ... unless you don't cook the meat.
- Sammi 11y agoI don't understand why it's a problem that an animal has been sick at some point during its lifetime. People get sick, then if it's a bacterial infection we get antibiotics, then we're fine again (hopefully). Why is this a problem for lifestock?
- DanBC 11y agoWe don't eat people so there's not that transmissibility route.
- code_sterling 11y agoIt would requires veterinarians and proper care of the animals. If you YouTube the animal farming, you'll see heavily overcrowded environments with animals not able to adequately move. This leads to stress, and they will self harm or harm others. So you have massive numbers of open wounds in unsanitary conditions. In order to maintain this factory style farming, we essentially need the antibiotics. Keep in mind turn around time as well. While a human may be on antibiotics after an infection for a few months, this can be the animals entire lifespan, as we dose them with steroids and growth hormones, and eat the artificially ready "babies". To ensure the infection has been adequately destroyed would disrupt production schedules. This isn't a justification for using them, but if we continue to factory farm animals the way we do, it's a necessity.
- illivah 11y agoThe title annoys me. Being "human" antibiotics is irrelevant. They don't kill humans, and they're not human specific. They're just basic antibiotics. If you were to cut out the alarmist, repetitive fluff you do actually have a problem at the bottom of all this. overused antibiotics (anywhere, on any species) tends to push evolution toward antibiotic resistance. That's bad. That said, from what I read in this article, this bill is also bad.
- alyx 11y agoExcuse my ignorance, but aren't antibiotics meant for humans, tested on us as well? I think the issue here is that antibiotics being given to animals were not studied for these scenarios. For instance, how they may impact milk and meat quality. Not to mention that they are given to animals in much less "regulated" way, compared to people.
- illivah 11y agoAt some point, yes. But that's not the first place they're tested. The first place their tested could simply be a petri dish, as penicillin was. Then it goes up the ranks into mammals more and more similar to us - rats, pigs, monkeys, etc. Usually it's not every step, because there really isn't a big reason to and that can slow development and increase costs of life-saving drugs.
- mirimir 11y agoThat's true. But, from a human-centric perspective, what matters most is their ability to fight bacterial infections in humans. It's also true that antibiotics are also used inappropriately in medical practice. Pediatricians tend to prescribe them more-or-less as a placebo, to fend off freaked-out parents. Flu suffers also tend to demand them. But there's always some ambiguity, given risk of secondary bacterial infections. There's no ambiguity in using antibiotics in livestock management to increase feed efficiency. That's just about the money. It either needs to be illegal, or we need some class torts ;)
- illivah 11y ago
- BurningFrog 11y agoWhat on earth are "Human" antibiotics? Antibiotics kill bacteria. There is nothing specific to our primate subspecies about them, AFAIK.
- n0us 11y agoRemember that this is a Vice article
- revelation 11y agoThere are plenty of things that kill bacteria. The trick is finding something that doesn't kill everything else.
- MaysonL 11y agoWhat on earth are "Human" antibiotics? Simple – antibiotics approved for use to treat human illness. The problem is that when they're used indiscriminately, whether on humans who don't need them, or on livestock, bacteria develop resistance.
- x5n1 11y agoWhen you use them on livestock you can guarantee they will be used indiscriminately... with the respective consequences.
- Laforet 11y agoPart of the indiscriminate use was out of necessity, but it is secondary to the fact that many antibiotics seems to promote growth and improve conversion of feed into weight gains. The exact mechanism is not well understood. A good example is nitarsone which is an organoarsenic additive commonly found in turkey feed until it was banned earlier this year. AFAIK it has not been approved for human use ever.
- mirimir 11y agoIt may be that antibiotics also "promote growth and improve conversion of feed into weight gains" in humans ;) In retrospect, that's not surprising.