9 ms·

The thing to note, however, is that once the horse is out of the barn, closing the barn door is futile. In fact it may very well be counterproductive if it lead

The thing to note, however, is that once the horse is out of the barn, closing the barn door is futile. In fact it may very well be counterproductive if it leads to infected meat spreading further.

Fomite 10y ago
Said antibiotics are most often used for growth promotion, rather than to treat disease. That's becoming less common, but it's still a complex problem.
- curun1r 10y ago
  Yes and no. Said antibiotics are given because we know that the diet we're feeding them will cause them to develop infections. Cows aren't naturally healthy eating corn/soy. For so many reasons, we need to end crop subsidies in this country.
  - jmartinpetersen 10y ago
    It's been known since the 50's that giving penicillin to livestock increases growth rate. Farmers have understood that and used that. The antibiotics counters and interacts in all sorts of ways we don't really understand (similar to how we don't really, really understand how the human gut works), but one of the ways it surely works is to counter problems caused by unsuitable living conditions. Ending crop subsidies is probably a good idea in most of the world, but it certainly won't solve the overuse of antibiotics in agriculture.
    - Qantourisc 10y ago
      In a way this is surprising to me. Shouldn't this destroy the gut flora, making it harder to digest/use the food ? Then again their entire gut flora might be anti-biotic resistant ....
      - IslaDeEncanta 10y ago
        Actually, that's often the case with cattle.
      - maxerickson 10y ago
        Several of the antibiotics in use as feed additives act selectively, changing the mix of microorganisms rather than destroying them all. I swear I'm not a shill for big ionophore, but this is something they do in ruminants, they shift the mix away from one that tends to lead to "bloat" when the animals are fed a lot of grain.
      - Fomite 10y ago
        Cows can have pretty intensive levels of antibiotic resistant gut flora.
      - bodski 10y ago
        Gut flora in humans appears to have a significant influence on weight gain/loss. Perhaps ABs fed to livestock tilt towards weight gain.
  - Fomite 10y ago
    There's three reasons for using antibiotics in livestock: 1. Growth promotion 2. Prophylactic treatment (what you're suggesting) 3. The treatment of actual disease Those go from the most to the least problematic - but I was mostly addressing the idea that a decrease in antibiotics would result in more animal products with bacterial contamination. For #1, that's not true, and for #2 it's not linear (infections in animals don't necessarily mean contaminated food products). When we talk about reducing antibiotic use in livestock, it's usually focused on #1 and putting #2 in the hands of vets (prophylactic treatments when there's actual risk of disease). Rarely do we actually suggest banning #3.
  - flavor8 10y ago
    > For so many reasons, we need to end crop subsidies in this country. We also need to reduce consumption of meat, and work towards raising it more healthily. It should be common sense that an unstressed animal fed the diet that it's evolved to thrive on would yield better meat (e.g. grass fed beef is objectively superior to cows fattened on corn.) Of course it is more expensive to do this, but so be it. There are plenty of cheap sources of nutritious proteins; people could be directed to adjust their expectations. Of course, there are many deep pocketed industry resources that would be against such an adjustment, and there's a new deep-pockets friendly administration in charge, so there's little hope of this happening in the near future...
WildUtah 10y ago
Antibiotics are a renewable resource. If we could prohibit all use of a class of antibiotics for a time, probably decades, bacteria will stop spending energy on resistance and become vulnerable again. Antibiotic resistance is a problem with a political solution. It just takes coordination and cooperation worldwide to do the right thing instead of chasing short-term profit. So I guess we'd better hope for a technological solution instead.
- saycheese 10y ago
  >> "...bacteria will stop spending energy on resistance and become vulnerable again." Source?
  - a-saleh 10y ago
    I wish I could have read more than the abstract, but maybe this [1] ... I would especially like to know what do they mean by "Unfortunately, the available data suggest that the rate of reversibility will be slow at the community level" [1] http://www.nature.com/nrmicro/journal/v8/n4/pdf/nrmicro2319.pdf http://www.nature.com/nrmicro/journal/v8/n4/pdf/nrmicro2319....
    - smhost 10y ago
      From that same paper: > In hospitals, both modelling and analysis of the correlations between antibiotic resistance and variation in antibiotic use show that alterations in antibiotic use can cause rapid changes (in the order of days to months) in the frequency of resistance. By contrast, when the fitness cost of resistance is the main driving force behind its reversal, the rate of change is expected to be much slower (months to years). I think what that means is that hospitals are able to create more selective pressure by rotating through different kinds of antibiotics.
  - kwhitefoot 10y ago
    Standard theory of evolution: organisms that spend energy on features that do not contribute to their fitness will be at a disadvantage in the long run compared to others of otherwise similar type that do not. The others will have more energy to devote to reproduction.
gumby 10y ago
> [banning use of antibiotics in animal feed] may very well be counterproductive if it leads to infected meat spreading further. This isn't why they put antibiotics in the food; it's because animals that eat bulk antibiotics gain more weight over the short term than animals that don't. Probably by killing off all the gut bacteria (except the antibiotic resistant ones) that might compete for nutrients. The animals are grown quickly then killed. If an animal is actually sick it's treated differently, or simply destroyed. Even farmers who don't use antibiotics to stimulate growth will treat their sick animals! BTW the resistant gut bacteria we're talking about are the ones that get people sick like e coli.

The thing to note, however, is that once the horse is out of the barn, closing the barn door is futile. In fact it may very well be counterproductive if it leads to infected meat spreading further.

Fomite 10y ago

Said antibiotics are most often used for growth promotion, rather than to treat disease. That's becoming less common, but it's still a complex problem.

curun1r 10y ago
Yes and no. Said antibiotics are given because we know that the diet we're feeding them will cause them to develop infections. Cows aren't naturally healthy eating corn/soy. For so many reasons, we need to end crop subsidies in this country.
- jmartinpetersen 10y ago
  It's been known since the 50's that giving penicillin to livestock increases growth rate. Farmers have understood that and used that. The antibiotics counters and interacts in all sorts of ways we don't really understand (similar to how we don't really, really understand how the human gut works), but one of the ways it surely works is to counter problems caused by unsuitable living conditions. Ending crop subsidies is probably a good idea in most of the world, but it certainly won't solve the overuse of antibiotics in agriculture.
  - Qantourisc 10y ago
    In a way this is surprising to me. Shouldn't this destroy the gut flora, making it harder to digest/use the food ? Then again their entire gut flora might be anti-biotic resistant ....
    - IslaDeEncanta 10y ago
      Actually, that's often the case with cattle.
    - maxerickson 10y ago
      Several of the antibiotics in use as feed additives act selectively, changing the mix of microorganisms rather than destroying them all. I swear I'm not a shill for big ionophore, but this is something they do in ruminants, they shift the mix away from one that tends to lead to "bloat" when the animals are fed a lot of grain.
    - Fomite 10y ago
      Cows can have pretty intensive levels of antibiotic resistant gut flora.
    - bodski 10y ago
      Gut flora in humans appears to have a significant influence on weight gain/loss. Perhaps ABs fed to livestock tilt towards weight gain.
- Fomite 10y ago
  There's three reasons for using antibiotics in livestock: 1. Growth promotion 2. Prophylactic treatment (what you're suggesting) 3. The treatment of actual disease Those go from the most to the least problematic - but I was mostly addressing the idea that a decrease in antibiotics would result in more animal products with bacterial contamination. For #1, that's not true, and for #2 it's not linear (infections in animals don't necessarily mean contaminated food products). When we talk about reducing antibiotic use in livestock, it's usually focused on #1 and putting #2 in the hands of vets (prophylactic treatments when there's actual risk of disease). Rarely do we actually suggest banning #3.
- flavor8 10y ago
  > For so many reasons, we need to end crop subsidies in this country. We also need to reduce consumption of meat, and work towards raising it more healthily. It should be common sense that an unstressed animal fed the diet that it's evolved to thrive on would yield better meat (e.g. grass fed beef is objectively superior to cows fattened on corn.) Of course it is more expensive to do this, but so be it. There are plenty of cheap sources of nutritious proteins; people could be directed to adjust their expectations. Of course, there are many deep pocketed industry resources that would be against such an adjustment, and there's a new deep-pockets friendly administration in charge, so there's little hope of this happening in the near future...

WildUtah 10y ago

Antibiotics are a renewable resource. If we could prohibit all use of a class of antibiotics for a time, probably decades, bacteria will stop spending energy on resistance and become vulnerable again. Antibiotic resistance is a problem with a political solution. It just takes coordination and cooperation worldwide to do the right thing instead of chasing short-term profit. So I guess we'd better hope for a technological solution instead.

saycheese 10y ago
>> "...bacteria will stop spending energy on resistance and become vulnerable again." Source?
- a-saleh 10y ago
  I wish I could have read more than the abstract, but maybe this [1] ... I would especially like to know what do they mean by "Unfortunately, the available data suggest that the rate of reversibility will be slow at the community level" [1] http://www.nature.com/nrmicro/journal/v8/n4/pdf/nrmicro2319.pdf http://www.nature.com/nrmicro/journal/v8/n4/pdf/nrmicro2319....
  - smhost 10y ago
    From that same paper: > In hospitals, both modelling and analysis of the correlations between antibiotic resistance and variation in antibiotic use show that alterations in antibiotic use can cause rapid changes (in the order of days to months) in the frequency of resistance. By contrast, when the fitness cost of resistance is the main driving force behind its reversal, the rate of change is expected to be much slower (months to years). I think what that means is that hospitals are able to create more selective pressure by rotating through different kinds of antibiotics.
- kwhitefoot 10y ago
  Standard theory of evolution: organisms that spend energy on features that do not contribute to their fitness will be at a disadvantage in the long run compared to others of otherwise similar type that do not. The others will have more energy to devote to reproduction.

gumby 10y ago

> [banning use of antibiotics in animal feed] may very well be counterproductive if it leads to infected meat spreading further. This isn't why they put antibiotics in the food; it's because animals that eat bulk antibiotics gain more weight over the short term than animals that don't. Probably by killing off all the gut bacteria (except the antibiotic resistant ones) that might compete for nutrients. The animals are grown quickly then killed. If an animal is actually sick it's treated differently, or simply destroyed. Even farmers who don't use antibiotics to stimulate growth will treat their sick animals! BTW the resistant gut bacteria we're talking about are the ones that get people sick like e coli.