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India's farmed chickens dosed with world's strongest antibiotics, study finds

495 points by Gupie 9y ago

mschuster91 9y ago
I wonder how much corruption is at play here - normally it would be the primary job of a food safety agency or the agency controlling medical supplie(r)s to prevent colistin going into farming. And that's not an Indian (or Chinese) only problem - pumping up livestock with antibiotics is common practice. I wonder when I won't go to a doctor to get antibiotics, but to the next butcher...
- goatlover 9y ago
  I wonder if Libertarians incorporate into their economic view that companies tend to do whatever they can get away with if it helps the bottom line, even if this is ultimately harmful?
  - rwallace 9y ago
    I would describe myself as a pragmatic libertarian; part of the reason for the adjective is that, yes, I acknowledge the need for regulation in cases like this.
    - neolefty 9y ago
      By that definition, I think every single human being would describe themselves as "pragmatic libertarian".
      - rwallace 9y ago
        Not quite. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism
      - blattimwind 9y ago
        Given the existence and size of anti-liber{tarian, al} movements in today's politics, I very much doubt this.
      - refurb 9y ago
        Yeah, no. A pragmatic libertarian would reach for regulations only when no other option exists. I would say a lot of human reach for regulations as the first option.
        majormajor 9y ago
        What do you see as the "first line" options if a company is behaving maliciously and consumer choice alone hasn't put them out of business? I'd rather have some kind of regulation at that point rather than, say, media shaming - the former is more likely to result in a process that looks at evidence when deciding if enforcement is needed, versus hysteria.
        djsumdog 9y ago
        When you really start to talk to libertarians, you'll find lots of exceptions. There are concepts like geo-libertarianism (lease land for use in a utilitarian fashion, essentially what countries like Mexico do where you can't own land, but you can get a 99 year lease). Many libertarians will say they support some form of health care, police, fire, etc, etc. I think there's a lot of cognitive dissonance in the views of many (not all) libertarians, and they don't want to acknowledge China and India are pretty much perfect cases of true or extreme versions of that system (more due to the inability to enforce regulations than lack of regulations themselves). High standards are only really enforceable through high socialized systems, like those in the US, EU, AU, Singapore, Japan, etc. You need to have national standards to guarantee food safety, water safety (bottled water is less safe than tap water in developed nations with municipal water regulation, and cost way less or is free), minimum standards for health, doctor certifications (vs quacks selling snake oil), et cetera.
  - minikites 9y ago
    I've never seen a libertarian answer to how that philosophy would solve global climate change so I very much doubt it.
    - ballenf 9y ago
      One answer I've heard is that libertarian policies promote fast economic development. Well-off nations and people don't want to be around pollution and can afford and demand cleaner tech. Forcing developing nations to adopt the policies of the wealthy creates an understandable tension and incentive for cheating the regs.
    - hutzlibu 9y ago
      Well, I don't see much solutions to climate change happening now. Libertarian approach would be simply adopt to the new situation, as I realistically see many people just don't care or believe. So I would (and do) still try to act as ethical as possible and go all for green technologies, but I doubt it can be forced up on people and do much good in the end, if people are not convinced of it.
      - ams6110 9y ago
        You're right that most people don't care about climate change. They may say they do, but look at behaviors. Ford is having trouble making enough $100K Lincoln Navigator SUVs, so high is the demand for them.
    - pmcollins 9y ago
      I think that you can call yourself a libertarian and still be in favor of the state compensating for negative externalities.
    - Helmet 9y ago
      Maybe because it's a ridiculously vague and abstruse question that presupposes a set of ideas that libertarianism, or any political philosophy for that matter, never set out to directly answer? Libertarianism is simply a political framework which we can use to see and interpret the world. It can be combined with other frameworks to help us reach even deeper levels of understand (or perhaps not). The right-libertarian could argue that the best solution is a competitive marketplace that will fuel hyper-economic growth, and accelerate the rate at which we develop technologies that allow us to ween off of fossil fuels. A left-libertarian, maybe someone with a strong civil libertarian persuasion, could argue that the non-aggression principle is being violated by the emissions of greenhouse gasses. They would then establish an "emissions rights" framework, and perhaps a marketplace to address the issue.
  - minikites 9y ago
    Snarky answer: if they thought about that, they wouldn't be libertarians.
  - hutzlibu 9y ago
    Well, apparently we do have trillions of laws and regulations and companies still can allmost do whatever they want. Because people still buy it as most consumers don't give a shit. Or (imagine) that they can't afford to care. This is the root problem I believe. Poverty and stupidity. So in my imaginary libertarian world, people are rich and smart enough(because they learned to think and act for themselves) to avoid companies, who do practice things like that. And therefore those companies would go bankrupt. (oh and for more direct harmful actions like pollution water/air, allmost all Libertarians would agree to direct action against)
    - mjburgess 9y ago
      The answer seems, then, "No". These laws and institutions to enforce them do not exist in india, that's the problem They do in the EU, and this doesn't happen. Markets are economic systems that separate people into amoral atoms that have no mechanism to turn moral agreement into general behaviour. Even if I agreed something should happen, my isolation from others makes my individual actions a form of charity and an injury to myself. If one company refrains from pollutants, it is "donating" profits to a moral cause not persuasive to other businesses. Yet if all-at-once agreed, no business is making a loss with respect to another. I cannot really imagine what place libertarians really want to live in. They seem to think morality is an individual action radically isolable from cooperation with others. It isnt. The attempt to make it one creates markets for murder, rape, etc. as natural concequences of people's moral isolation.
      - hutzlibu 9y ago
        "They seem to think morality is an individual action radically isolable from cooperation with others" Morality is allways individual action, as we are all individuals. Also if we individuals decide to form a group, for example for insurance and help those in need. "If one company refrains from pollutants, it is "donating" profits to a moral cause not persuasive to other businesses" Unless it openly adverts about this practice amd people who do care, are therefore willing to spend more money on this company. This is happening a lot right now with organic food and other things (sure, some might only do it, for themselve - better food quality, but not all and even those still feel better, as they know they also help biodiversity and a enjoyable landscape) edit: and those laws don't exist there, because people don't care there. Laws are just another way of expressing the will of people. I just prefer laws to be the last way and not the standard.
  - clarkmoody 9y ago
    What is it with Hacker News and unprovoked attacks on libertarians? (but since I can't resist) Of course libertarians consider self-interest in their thinking about a free society. Your key term is "get away with" and it points to the problems with regulatory agencies. When a government body has placed its seal of approval on a product, it does two things: a) Causes many consumers to trust the benefits / safety of the product, since the government said it's ok. (And they never lie to us, right?) b) Gives the corporation wiggle room within the certification, potentially changing the product for the worse while maintaining its approval. But if you take a step back, the limited-liability corporation is a fiction of the state in the first place. Hiding behind a "corporate person" could be a huge factor in bad behavior, enabled by state action. After the financial crisis in 2008, many lamented the fact that none of the bankers went to jail (although some corporations were heavily fined). Perhaps limited liability is the problem. If members of corporations were on the hook personally for injury to consumers, they might behave better?
    - Daishiman 9y ago
      Your thesis is 100% inconsistent with the history of food safety regulations. Sure, put the people in corporations personally liable without any government agency inspecting. You're going to a society ten times more litigious than the US. People with no economic recourse to sue will get the short stick of things. Your proposition is beyond ridiculous, and that's what merits attacks on the profound naivete of libertarian approaches.
      - clarkmoody 9y ago
        > Your thesis is 100% inconsistent with the history of food safety regulations. Source? > People with no economic recourse to sue will get the short stick of things. How is that different than now? > Your proposition is beyond ridiculous Say you, without providing any proposition of your own.
        Daishiman 9y ago
        Go google "history of food safety" yourself. C'mon.
  - ataturk 9y ago
    What with the Big "L" hate anyways? A market-based solution is underway--the first thing is educating the public, which is hard to do in countries like India and China where the masses are hopelessly poor and ignorant and kept that way on purpose. Despite that situation, once word gets out to people that animals pumped up with antibiotics are disgusting and harmful to public health, the reaction is swift. Or did you think it was regulation in the US that has shifted food production in the US towards animals raised without antibiotics? Seen the labeling on foods lately? Every producer is touting hormone-free this and antibiotic-free that. What we might need is proof, which is what meat inspectors do, right?
  - zo1 9y ago
    People already care very-little about this problem enough to convince their governments to do something about it. That applies to the Indian populace, as well as other countries that aren't currently pressuring/sanctioning/bombing India to prevent a biological disaster (so we're told). So I don't really see how your criticism against Libertarianism applies here because governments are letting it happen right now. It's only you, and what appears to be a minority of individuals, that cares about it. If it were a majority, then Democracy would be fixing it right now, right? And, to answer your actual question: I can't answer it for every single person out there. That's how non-government solutions look like. Each individual voting, acting and caring about each specific problem in his or her own way. Libertarianism is the ultimate form of Democracy in that regard.
  - anonymous5133 9y ago
    I view myself as libertarian but I believe in something called ethical capitalism which basically means the buyer/sellers in a free market all agree willingly to not engage in unethical behaviors. The idea is that buyers would refuse to buy from unethical businesses which forces them out of the market and likewise sellers would be inclined to be ethical to attract business. It ends up being a self-reinforcing cycle.
    - ams6110 9y ago
      Reminds me of the John Adams quote, "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." A lot of nice things are theoretically possible when everyone behaves. Too bad the real world doesn't work that way.
    - orf 9y ago
      But this is a complete fantasy, right? It's completely at odds with actual capitalism. The cycles your proposing would happen would be broken the moment an unethical company is able to appear as an ethical one, which is not exactly hard.
  - dang 9y ago
    Could you please not take HN threads on generic ideological tangents? They're off topic here because like all generic threads, they're predictable, and like all political threads they lead to flamewars. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- wukerplank 9y ago
  And it's not even limited to land animals: salmon (fish in general), shrip, etc. farms rely on antibiotics to maximize animals per cubic meter. I rarely eat meat and stopped eating Sushi because of this. It's very hard to find out where your food comes from in restaurants.
  - anonymous5133 9y ago
    There is a documentary on netflix called rotten which I think you will find to be very interesting. It talks about corruption in the food industry. It is very easy to integrate unverified sourced food into the global food chain.
goalieca 9y ago
Who are the pharmaceutical companies selling to for this to happen??
- neolefty 9y ago
  Is the colistin even being manufactured by pharmas? Or is there just some chemical plant pumping it out? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colistin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colistin
- tobltobs 9y ago
  This article has some more info: http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/a-game-of-chicken-how-indias-poultry-farms-are-spawning-global-superbugs/article22597845.ece http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/a-game-of-chicken-how-... One paragraph: "One of these companies, Venky’s, is also a major poultry producer. Apart from selling animal medicines and creating its own chicken meals, it supplies meat directly and indirectly to fast food chains in India such as KFC, McDonald’s, Pizza Hut and Domino’s."
veeragoni 9y ago
Next time I feel sick, I will eat non organic chicken to get some antibiotics.
azureel 9y ago
There are 2 questions that are missing in the article. - Who is producing and selling this antibiotics, in a scale of hundreds of tons? - Is it produced in India or another country?
- improbable22 9y ago
  I'm sure it's produced there, they manufacture a lot of drugs. If I remember right, a lot of generics sold in the west are produced in bulk in India, with a western company packaging & doing the paperwork.
  - azureel 9y ago
    It is saying "are shipped to India each year" so that means it is coming from abroad, right?
    - improbable22 9y ago
      Sorry, reading fail! But the linked report is indeed vague: "Colistin is manufactured by two companies in India but the country is also importing at least 150 tonnes of the drug each year." They appear to have found some customs documents, that's all. Googling, some article says "China was estimated to be using 8000 tonnes of colistin per year of the global production of 12 000 tonnes" a few years ago. So it would not be surprising if this import were only 10 percent. Also: TFA says "There are currently no regulations that would prevent such export to the UK on hygiene terms, except for those agreed under the EU. Any regulations to be negotiated after Brexit might not" while the article linked says "the UK uses less than a tonne a year of colistin in agriculture." So it's not banned now, it seems!
- urlwolf 9y ago
  Is it crazy to think that other nations may feel threatened by the potential epidemics of antibiotic resistant bacteria? If so, could they (1) stablish sanctions (2) invade or in worst case (3) nuke, a country that is actively provoking a worldwide crisis?
nonamechicken 9y ago
This article has more info: http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/a-game-of-chicken-how-indias-poultry-farms-are-spawning-global-superbugs/article22597845.ece http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/a-game-of-chicken-how-... Some highlights: "In India, at least five animal pharmaceutical companies are openly advertising products containing colistin as growth promoters. One of these companies, Venky’s, is also a major poultry producer. Apart from selling animal medicines and creating its own chicken meals, it supplies meat directly and indirectly to fast food chains in India such as KFC, McDonald’s, Pizza Hut and Domino’s." "McDonald’s, KFC, Pizza Hut and Domino’s said the chicken they sourced from Venky’s is not raised on growth-promoting antibiotics and their suppliers follow their policies controlling their use of antibiotics. McDonald’s has pledged to phase out the use of critically important antibiotics by 2018 for markets including the EU and the U.S. — with an extra year for phasing out colistin in Europe. KFC has made a similar promise about its U.S. supply chains. They have promised to do the same in India, but without giving any timeframe. Jubilant FoodWorks (which owns Domino’s) has set a date, of 2019, to start phasing out the drugs." From Venky's wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_H_Group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_H_Group): "In December 2010, the group launched Venky's Xprs, a fast food restaurant specializing in chicken. The first outlet opened in Pune, India."
- pasta1212 9y ago
  To be clear, Jubilant Foodworks is the master franchisee for Domino’s in India. They don’t own Domino’s Pizza.
- JoeAltmaier 9y ago
  Curiously, antibiotics were used widely in the USA for weight gain in agricultural animals. It go to the point the sales agents would take them too, and have annual 'weigh-ins' at the sales conventions! Here's an article about it (if you can fight past the popup ads): https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2014/03/14/are-antibiotics-making-us-fat https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2014/03/14/are...
  - michrassena 9y ago
ollybee 9y ago
From https://aphascience.blog.gov.uk/2016/11/18/colistin-an-antibiotic-of-last-resort/ https://aphascience.blog.gov.uk/2016/11/18/colistin-an-antib... "Colistin is considered a drug of last resort in human medicine" but also "It has been used in Europe for decades to treat intestinal infections in farm animals, although in the UK, it has only more recently been used to treat infections in animals" The Guardian article paints a picture of developing countries irresposibly using colistin for animals, but I dont think that is the full story here.
- Gupie 9y ago
  Good link, although the article claims colistin is being used as a growth promoter, ie fed to healthy animals, not to "to treat intestinal infections" as in Europe.
- norikki 9y ago
  In Europe, it's used to treat sick large animals, which are very expensive to replace. (Cows cost over a thousand dollars) In India, it is fed to 100% of healthy chickens to make them grow faster, because their immune systems don't have to deal with bacteria anymore, and so more energy goes into growth. The number of reproducing bacteria being exposed to antibiotics, (and therefore with a chance to develop immunity) is orders of magnitude higher with what Indians are doing than with what Europeans are doing.
  - blattimwind 9y ago
    (meta) I suggest to deliver a counter-argument instead of downvoting and flagging an argument you don't like.
    - norikki 9y ago
      Is this comment directed at me? I did provide a counter argument, and I didn't downvote or flag anyone.
- zo1 9y ago
  I don't think it really matters how it's being painted. If it's true/fact (and we are here discussing it), then it's a problem that needs solving, period. Let's not devolve this into "but you did it first so I can do it too" detractions that won't help prevent biological consequences for the rest of society.
mofeien 9y ago
How big of an influence towards not eating cheap chicken anymore should the overuse of antibiotics be in your ethical framework? Relating to "buying fair-trade coffee for the plantation worker's sake", "not driving (combustion) cars because of environmental impact", etc. I find it hard to estimate. For me, the antibiotics situation had only sub-conscious influence; the concrete, formulated reasoning was more like this: Before becoming completely vegetarian, I started preferring big animals like beef and pork over chicken because their amount of meat per animal killed is higher. Then I stopped eating beef because of its climate implications. Finally someone told me pigs are actually quite intelligent so even though it's just few animals per kg of meat, their ethical weight weighed more heavy again. Luckily at this point it was not a big step anymore and pretty easy to stop eating meat altogether.
- spraak 9y ago
  By completely vegetarian do you mean vegan? Because if you've come this far but still consume dairy or eggs, you might consider how the milked cow or egg laying chicken still lives a horrible life and eventually is slaughtered, too. Edit: I'm vegan, for some of the above reasons, but also for other reasons.
yeukhon 9y ago
When I shop, I want oragnic meat. But it remains a myth to me whether one brand is “more organic” than others. Can I trust the simple “organic approved” stamp? What’s in theirs anyway? What about the organic soil in my backyard I use to grow my delicious tomatoes? Free range chicken are completely organic? Not necessary, a misconception. What exactly is “organic”? Antibacterial resistance is becoming more evident. Beside regulate the use of antibotics (and pesticide) in food source, we should not overlook the overuse of antibotics in medical treatments [1][2][3]. Patients often do not understand what antibotics are for, and they would ask their doctors to prescribe antibotics even when antibotics are absolutely unnecessary. Some doctors will give in because the prescription would avoid confrontation with the patient and therefore will give the patient an illusion he/she is receiving the full treatment. Antibacterial resistance affects now and our future generations. Look up “antibotic resistance” in Google News and you will find hundreds of news articles over the years. [1]: https://www.cdc.gov/features/antibioticuse/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/features/antibioticuse/index.html [2]: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/05/170509121924.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/05/170509121924.h... [3]: http://www.utswmedicine.org/stories/articles/year-2017/antibiotics-evidence-based-medicine.html http://www.utswmedicine.org/stories/articles/year-2017/antib...
- spraak 9y ago
  Simplest (not easiest) personal solution is to not eat meat (or any animal products)
  - Gupie 9y ago
    Neither will help you if you for example pick up a resistant strain while for example in hospital.
    - spraak 9y ago
      Yeah, but that's not the point.
      - Gupie 9y ago
0xmohit 9y ago
Research by the Centre for Science and Environment revealed that 70% of the milk sold in India is adulterated [1]. Unfortunately, there are little or no checks by the government agencies and businesses continues to sell adulterated products. People sell milk prepared out of refined oil and detergents. It has been covered widely [2], but the practice continues unabated. It becomes hard to trust those selling organic stuff (milk, vegetables or chicken) as they are practically willing to supply as much quantity as one wants to procure. Even vegetables sold in India are dangerous [3]. [1] http://www.cseindia.org/content/adulterated-milk-what-indians-are-drinking http://www.cseindia.org/content/adulterated-milk-what-indian... [2] https://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2012/01/10/most-indian-milk-adulterated/ https://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2012/01/10/most-indian-m... [3] https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/City/Lucknow/Veggies-on-steroids-are-softly-killing-you/articleshow/4717994.cms https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/City/Lucknow/Veggies-on-...
- spraak 9y ago
  My personal solution has been to give up all animal products.
  - kurthr 9y ago
    How does that help with the adulterated vegetables?
    - cratermoon 9y ago
      Nobody is dosing vegetables with antibiotics. Bacteria that are pathological for plants generally want nothing to do with the warm, oxygenated environment of people.
      - kurthr 9y ago
        The post user spraak was responding to, who's content I was responding to, which you responded to contained the final line: Even vegetables sold in India are dangerous [3]. and the reference [3] https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/City/Lucknow/Veggies-on-steroids-are-softly-killing-you/articleshow/4717994.cms https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/City/Lucknow/Veggies-on-... which refers to the human active hormones/steroids that are put in Inidan vegetables in a similar effort to marginally improve their yield with unknown, but probable systemic and ecological effects. The point being that unregulated food markets of any sort will lead to unhealthy and societally damaging "externalities" even in the predominantly vegetarian India.
known 9y ago
They're talking about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broiler https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broiler
nofilter 9y ago
So, birds that can't fly very far, are very high. Interesting.
vanderZwan 9y ago
While not quite the same thing, this reminds me of that time when tramadol was found in tree bark in Cameroon and misclassified as a natural product for a while: > [You] can indeed extract tramadol from the stated species – there’s no doubt about it. You can extract three of its major metabolites, too – its three major mammalian metabolites. That’s because, as it turns out, tramadol is given extensively to cattle (!) in the region, so much of it that the parent drug and its metabolites have soaked into the soil enough for the African peach/pincushion tree to have taken it up into its roots. http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2014/09/15/weirdly_tramadol_is_not_a_natural_product_after_all http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2014/09/15/wei...
biztos 9y ago
This is why I was so impressed with the roadside sellers of live chickens I saw in Pune. In a place where the climate is unfavorable to the freshness of meat, and (just like in the USA) the big producers have strong incentives to sell you crap, how do you know the animal you're going to eat is healthy? Observe it alive! Probably not a foolproof method, but better than you're getting at Whole Foods.
- thevardanian 9y ago
  Is it really better than WholeFoods though?
  - biztos 9y ago
    I'm not sure but my intuition says yes: ideally it should work like a farmer's market, where the individual seller is strongly invested in not cheating you. So you have that, plus whatever level of knowledge you have about chickens (probably pretty extensive if you buy them live all the time). And the freshness, specifically, is guaranteed. With Whole Foods you have whatever trust you want to put in Amazon not over-squeezing the margins on the chicken-supply chain, plus the warm fuzzy "I can afford Whole Foods" feeling. In aggregate I think food regulations work pretty well in the US but I think the people I saw buying those chickens were making more informed choices than I would even at a Whole Foods or equivalent "Big Organic" outfit.
    - Libturd 9y ago
      amazon? WF has been selling bell and evan's air chilled chicken for many, many years. you have literally no idea what you're talking about, kiddo.
- reaperducer 9y ago
  Alive != healthy, sanitary, or suitable for consumption.
  - vickychijwani 9y ago
drak0n1c 9y ago
There's a bit of a Trolley Problem here. 194,000,000 Indians experienced starvation and malnutrition in 2014-2015. If antibiotics greatly speeds animal growth, aids reproductive success, and increases muscle mass perhaps it's a necessary temporary risk in order to increase the food supply and drive down food prices. Antibiotic resistant diseases claimed around 700,000 lives in 2014 according to the CDC. Animal feed is unproven to be contributing factor, and only a partial one if so.
- volune 9y ago
  We must do whatever it takes to maximize human populations. Whatever it takes.
  - fellellor 9y ago
    More like we must help our starving fellow citizens. Note: It's easy to counter ridiculous arguments, and derail an entire conversation in the process.
    - hyperdunc 9y ago
      The message you replied to may be facetious, but it makes a fair point. There is too much emphasis on alleviating the suffering of people who probably shouldn't exist in the first place. In the 90s in Ethiopia there was a famine caused by drought, lack of development and especially over-population. Affluent countries gave tonnes of food aid and reduced the size of the catastrophe. Soon afterwards, the population of Ethiopia exploded. As a collective they had learnt nothing about the danger of over-population. In India, there's also a lack of social awareness about the impact humans have on the environment - but the issue isn't famine. Rather, the huge population is bolstered by developments such as modern farming techniques that produce food of dubious quality. Generally, humans (in the third world in particular) are like most species in that their populations increase to the limit of what development and the environment supports. Sudden environmental changes and rapid, careless development bring suffering to many of the extra millions that exist. And when suffering occurs, never does anyone of influence say that perhaps humans should stop breeding like rabbits and that perhaps a catastrophe is nature's way of telling us that. Instead, with every catastrophe we hear pontificating about how terrible it is, and often foreign entities will rush to give aid and thereby reinforce the irresponsible collective behaviour of the societies that are suffering. Does that sound heartless? It's not quite so heartless as how suffering individuals are treated by their own societies. When a society is mal-developed and contains hundreds of millions, the suffering of an individual is negligible to the whole. In these circumstances it is likely that only mass suffering will cause reflection and change. Suffering societies need to learn from tragedies and take collective responsibility by reducing their population numbers and valuing the lives of their members.
calimac 9y ago
Hippie libtards freak out over antibiotics in their chicken but beg to be injected with just as strong antibiotics at first sneeze of the flu? ...Just saying People are for the most part completely retarded.
kbhn 9y ago
It's not a popular opinion to share online due to how ingrained food choices are into our lives (memories, communion, celebratory meals, etc), but if this development concerns you I highly recommend exploring a plant-based diet. I've been meat/dairy free for about a year now and it's been one of the best decisions I've ever made.
- jtwebman 9y ago
  I too am on a whole plant based diet for over a year. I feel like I am 20 again.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > It's not a popular opinion to share online It is actually one of the most popular lifestyle opinions people share online and in real life, aside from proselytizing things generally recognized as religions, and has been for probably a couple of decades.
  - hycaria 9y ago
    Yeahhhh not on HN. People here are very hyped by lab meat and reversing climate change thanks to science and technology, so any change of diet is not necessary. Especially since so many people here are convinced by keto diets, whic relies heavily on animal protein.
    - XR0CSWV3h3kZWg 9y ago
      I've been leaning heavier on a plant based diet and generally eating lower on the food chain. For me the main advantages are environmental and ethical, both of which should be had with lab meat.
      - hycaria 9y ago
        I am a vegetarian, just wanted to share my impressions about HN's reaction to plant based diet suggestions :)
- 9y ago
deleted 9y ago
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nnain 9y ago
Gosh, I hate how organised, and lethal Venky's and similar companies are. They need to be checked in news, ALL the time. (Just shared this on all my social media. I hope the news spreads far and wide.)
perseusprime11 9y ago
Is this one of the causes as to why humans are developing resistance to antibiotics?
mixas 9y ago
Factory farming was literally non-existent in India about 15-20 years ago. And when it started it was advertised and promoted as a "cleaner" alternative to buying from traditional sources. When morality and responsibility is moved away from the individual, the unscrupulous rise up to dominate the market. Europe isn't as rosy either as it is often painted. The supermarkets (near duopoly), would sell anything at any price as long as they can get away with it.

495 points by Gupie 9y ago

I wonder how much corruption is at play here - normally it would be the primary job of a food safety agency or the agency controlling medical supplie(r)s to prevent colistin going into farming. And that's not an Indian (or Chinese) only problem - pumping up livestock with antibiotics is common practice. I wonder when I won't go to a doctor to get antibiotics, but to the next butcher...

goatlover 9y ago
I wonder if Libertarians incorporate into their economic view that companies tend to do whatever they can get away with if it helps the bottom line, even if this is ultimately harmful?
- rwallace 9y ago
  I would describe myself as a pragmatic libertarian; part of the reason for the adjective is that, yes, I acknowledge the need for regulation in cases like this.
  - neolefty 9y ago
    By that definition, I think every single human being would describe themselves as "pragmatic libertarian".
    - rwallace 9y ago
      Not quite. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism
    - blattimwind 9y ago
      Given the existence and size of anti-liber{tarian, al} movements in today's politics, I very much doubt this.
    - refurb 9y ago
      Yeah, no. A pragmatic libertarian would reach for regulations only when no other option exists. I would say a lot of human reach for regulations as the first option.
      - majormajor 9y ago
        What do you see as the "first line" options if a company is behaving maliciously and consumer choice alone hasn't put them out of business? I'd rather have some kind of regulation at that point rather than, say, media shaming - the former is more likely to result in a process that looks at evidence when deciding if enforcement is needed, versus hysteria.
        djsumdog 9y ago
        When you really start to talk to libertarians, you'll find lots of exceptions. There are concepts like geo-libertarianism (lease land for use in a utilitarian fashion, essentially what countries like Mexico do where you can't own land, but you can get a 99 year lease). Many libertarians will say they support some form of health care, police, fire, etc, etc. I think there's a lot of cognitive dissonance in the views of many (not all) libertarians, and they don't want to acknowledge China and India are pretty much perfect cases of true or extreme versions of that system (more due to the inability to enforce regulations than lack of regulations themselves). High standards are only really enforceable through high socialized systems, like those in the US, EU, AU, Singapore, Japan, etc. You need to have national standards to guarantee food safety, water safety (bottled water is less safe than tap water in developed nations with municipal water regulation, and cost way less or is free), minimum standards for health, doctor certifications (vs quacks selling snake oil), et cetera.
- minikites 9y ago
  I've never seen a libertarian answer to how that philosophy would solve global climate change so I very much doubt it.
  - ballenf 9y ago
    One answer I've heard is that libertarian policies promote fast economic development. Well-off nations and people don't want to be around pollution and can afford and demand cleaner tech. Forcing developing nations to adopt the policies of the wealthy creates an understandable tension and incentive for cheating the regs.
  - hutzlibu 9y ago
    Well, I don't see much solutions to climate change happening now. Libertarian approach would be simply adopt to the new situation, as I realistically see many people just don't care or believe. So I would (and do) still try to act as ethical as possible and go all for green technologies, but I doubt it can be forced up on people and do much good in the end, if people are not convinced of it.
    - ams6110 9y ago
      You're right that most people don't care about climate change. They may say they do, but look at behaviors. Ford is having trouble making enough $100K Lincoln Navigator SUVs, so high is the demand for them.
  - pmcollins 9y ago
    I think that you can call yourself a libertarian and still be in favor of the state compensating for negative externalities.
  - Helmet 9y ago
    Maybe because it's a ridiculously vague and abstruse question that presupposes a set of ideas that libertarianism, or any political philosophy for that matter, never set out to directly answer? Libertarianism is simply a political framework which we can use to see and interpret the world. It can be combined with other frameworks to help us reach even deeper levels of understand (or perhaps not). The right-libertarian could argue that the best solution is a competitive marketplace that will fuel hyper-economic growth, and accelerate the rate at which we develop technologies that allow us to ween off of fossil fuels. A left-libertarian, maybe someone with a strong civil libertarian persuasion, could argue that the non-aggression principle is being violated by the emissions of greenhouse gasses. They would then establish an "emissions rights" framework, and perhaps a marketplace to address the issue.
- minikites 9y ago
  Snarky answer: if they thought about that, they wouldn't be libertarians.
- hutzlibu 9y ago
  Well, apparently we do have trillions of laws and regulations and companies still can allmost do whatever they want. Because people still buy it as most consumers don't give a shit. Or (imagine) that they can't afford to care. This is the root problem I believe. Poverty and stupidity. So in my imaginary libertarian world, people are rich and smart enough(because they learned to think and act for themselves) to avoid companies, who do practice things like that. And therefore those companies would go bankrupt. (oh and for more direct harmful actions like pollution water/air, allmost all Libertarians would agree to direct action against)
  - mjburgess 9y ago
    The answer seems, then, "No". These laws and institutions to enforce them do not exist in india, that's the problem They do in the EU, and this doesn't happen. Markets are economic systems that separate people into amoral atoms that have no mechanism to turn moral agreement into general behaviour. Even if I agreed something should happen, my isolation from others makes my individual actions a form of charity and an injury to myself. If one company refrains from pollutants, it is "donating" profits to a moral cause not persuasive to other businesses. Yet if all-at-once agreed, no business is making a loss with respect to another. I cannot really imagine what place libertarians really want to live in. They seem to think morality is an individual action radically isolable from cooperation with others. It isnt. The attempt to make it one creates markets for murder, rape, etc. as natural concequences of people's moral isolation.
    - hutzlibu 9y ago
      "They seem to think morality is an individual action radically isolable from cooperation with others" Morality is allways individual action, as we are all individuals. Also if we individuals decide to form a group, for example for insurance and help those in need. "If one company refrains from pollutants, it is "donating" profits to a moral cause not persuasive to other businesses" Unless it openly adverts about this practice amd people who do care, are therefore willing to spend more money on this company. This is happening a lot right now with organic food and other things (sure, some might only do it, for themselve - better food quality, but not all and even those still feel better, as they know they also help biodiversity and a enjoyable landscape) edit: and those laws don't exist there, because people don't care there. Laws are just another way of expressing the will of people. I just prefer laws to be the last way and not the standard.
- clarkmoody 9y ago
  What is it with Hacker News and unprovoked attacks on libertarians? (but since I can't resist) Of course libertarians consider self-interest in their thinking about a free society. Your key term is "get away with" and it points to the problems with regulatory agencies. When a government body has placed its seal of approval on a product, it does two things: a) Causes many consumers to trust the benefits / safety of the product, since the government said it's ok. (And they never lie to us, right?) b) Gives the corporation wiggle room within the certification, potentially changing the product for the worse while maintaining its approval. But if you take a step back, the limited-liability corporation is a fiction of the state in the first place. Hiding behind a "corporate person" could be a huge factor in bad behavior, enabled by state action. After the financial crisis in 2008, many lamented the fact that none of the bankers went to jail (although some corporations were heavily fined). Perhaps limited liability is the problem. If members of corporations were on the hook personally for injury to consumers, they might behave better?
  - Daishiman 9y ago
    Your thesis is 100% inconsistent with the history of food safety regulations. Sure, put the people in corporations personally liable without any government agency inspecting. You're going to a society ten times more litigious than the US. People with no economic recourse to sue will get the short stick of things. Your proposition is beyond ridiculous, and that's what merits attacks on the profound naivete of libertarian approaches.
    - clarkmoody 9y ago
      > Your thesis is 100% inconsistent with the history of food safety regulations. Source? > People with no economic recourse to sue will get the short stick of things. How is that different than now? > Your proposition is beyond ridiculous Say you, without providing any proposition of your own.
      - Daishiman 9y ago
        Go google "history of food safety" yourself. C'mon.
- ataturk 9y ago
  What with the Big "L" hate anyways? A market-based solution is underway--the first thing is educating the public, which is hard to do in countries like India and China where the masses are hopelessly poor and ignorant and kept that way on purpose. Despite that situation, once word gets out to people that animals pumped up with antibiotics are disgusting and harmful to public health, the reaction is swift. Or did you think it was regulation in the US that has shifted food production in the US towards animals raised without antibiotics? Seen the labeling on foods lately? Every producer is touting hormone-free this and antibiotic-free that. What we might need is proof, which is what meat inspectors do, right?
- zo1 9y ago
  People already care very-little about this problem enough to convince their governments to do something about it. That applies to the Indian populace, as well as other countries that aren't currently pressuring/sanctioning/bombing India to prevent a biological disaster (so we're told). So I don't really see how your criticism against Libertarianism applies here because governments are letting it happen right now. It's only you, and what appears to be a minority of individuals, that cares about it. If it were a majority, then Democracy would be fixing it right now, right? And, to answer your actual question: I can't answer it for every single person out there. That's how non-government solutions look like. Each individual voting, acting and caring about each specific problem in his or her own way. Libertarianism is the ultimate form of Democracy in that regard.
- anonymous5133 9y ago
  I view myself as libertarian but I believe in something called ethical capitalism which basically means the buyer/sellers in a free market all agree willingly to not engage in unethical behaviors. The idea is that buyers would refuse to buy from unethical businesses which forces them out of the market and likewise sellers would be inclined to be ethical to attract business. It ends up being a self-reinforcing cycle.
  - ams6110 9y ago
    Reminds me of the John Adams quote, "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." A lot of nice things are theoretically possible when everyone behaves. Too bad the real world doesn't work that way.
  - orf 9y ago
    But this is a complete fantasy, right? It's completely at odds with actual capitalism. The cycles your proposing would happen would be broken the moment an unethical company is able to appear as an ethical one, which is not exactly hard.
- dang 9y ago
  Could you please not take HN threads on generic ideological tangents? They're off topic here because like all generic threads, they're predictable, and like all political threads they lead to flamewars. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
wukerplank 9y ago
And it's not even limited to land animals: salmon (fish in general), shrip, etc. farms rely on antibiotics to maximize animals per cubic meter. I rarely eat meat and stopped eating Sushi because of this. It's very hard to find out where your food comes from in restaurants.
- anonymous5133 9y ago
  There is a documentary on netflix called rotten which I think you will find to be very interesting. It talks about corruption in the food industry. It is very easy to integrate unverified sourced food into the global food chain.

goalieca 9y ago

Who are the pharmaceutical companies selling to for this to happen??

neolefty 9y ago
Is the colistin even being manufactured by pharmas? Or is there just some chemical plant pumping it out? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colistin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colistin
tobltobs 9y ago
This article has some more info: http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/a-game-of-chicken-how-indias-poultry-farms-are-spawning-global-superbugs/article22597845.ece http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/a-game-of-chicken-how-... One paragraph: "One of these companies, Venky’s, is also a major poultry producer. Apart from selling animal medicines and creating its own chicken meals, it supplies meat directly and indirectly to fast food chains in India such as KFC, McDonald’s, Pizza Hut and Domino’s."

veeragoni 9y ago

Next time I feel sick, I will eat non organic chicken to get some antibiotics.

azureel 9y ago

There are 2 questions that are missing in the article. - Who is producing and selling this antibiotics, in a scale of hundreds of tons? - Is it produced in India or another country?

improbable22 9y ago
I'm sure it's produced there, they manufacture a lot of drugs. If I remember right, a lot of generics sold in the west are produced in bulk in India, with a western company packaging & doing the paperwork.
- azureel 9y ago
  It is saying "are shipped to India each year" so that means it is coming from abroad, right?
  - improbable22 9y ago
    Sorry, reading fail! But the linked report is indeed vague: "Colistin is manufactured by two companies in India but the country is also importing at least 150 tonnes of the drug each year." They appear to have found some customs documents, that's all. Googling, some article says "China was estimated to be using 8000 tonnes of colistin per year of the global production of 12 000 tonnes" a few years ago. So it would not be surprising if this import were only 10 percent. Also: TFA says "There are currently no regulations that would prevent such export to the UK on hygiene terms, except for those agreed under the EU. Any regulations to be negotiated after Brexit might not" while the article linked says "the UK uses less than a tonne a year of colistin in agriculture." So it's not banned now, it seems!
urlwolf 9y ago
Is it crazy to think that other nations may feel threatened by the potential epidemics of antibiotic resistant bacteria? If so, could they (1) stablish sanctions (2) invade or in worst case (3) nuke, a country that is actively provoking a worldwide crisis?

nonamechicken 9y ago

This article has more info: http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/a-game-of-chicken-how-indias-poultry-farms-are-spawning-global-superbugs/article22597845.ece http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/a-game-of-chicken-how-... Some highlights: "In India, at least five animal pharmaceutical companies are openly advertising products containing colistin as growth promoters. One of these companies, Venky’s, is also a major poultry producer. Apart from selling animal medicines and creating its own chicken meals, it supplies meat directly and indirectly to fast food chains in India such as KFC, McDonald’s, Pizza Hut and Domino’s." "McDonald’s, KFC, Pizza Hut and Domino’s said the chicken they sourced from Venky’s is not raised on growth-promoting antibiotics and their suppliers follow their policies controlling their use of antibiotics. McDonald’s has pledged to phase out the use of critically important antibiotics by 2018 for markets including the EU and the U.S. — with an extra year for phasing out colistin in Europe. KFC has made a similar promise about its U.S. supply chains. They have promised to do the same in India, but without giving any timeframe. Jubilant FoodWorks (which owns Domino’s) has set a date, of 2019, to start phasing out the drugs." From Venky's wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_H_Group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_H_Group): "In December 2010, the group launched Venky's Xprs, a fast food restaurant specializing in chicken. The first outlet opened in Pune, India."

pasta1212 9y ago
To be clear, Jubilant Foodworks is the master franchisee for Domino’s in India. They don’t own Domino’s Pizza.
JoeAltmaier 9y ago
Curiously, antibiotics were used widely in the USA for weight gain in agricultural animals. It go to the point the sales agents would take them too, and have annual 'weigh-ins' at the sales conventions! Here's an article about it (if you can fight past the popup ads): https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2014/03/14/are-antibiotics-making-us-fat https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2014/03/14/are...
- michrassena 9y ago

ollybee 9y ago

From https://aphascience.blog.gov.uk/2016/11/18/colistin-an-antibiotic-of-last-resort/ https://aphascience.blog.gov.uk/2016/11/18/colistin-an-antib... "Colistin is considered a drug of last resort in human medicine" but also "It has been used in Europe for decades to treat intestinal infections in farm animals, although in the UK, it has only more recently been used to treat infections in animals" The Guardian article paints a picture of developing countries irresposibly using colistin for animals, but I dont think that is the full story here.

Gupie 9y ago
Good link, although the article claims colistin is being used as a growth promoter, ie fed to healthy animals, not to "to treat intestinal infections" as in Europe.
norikki 9y ago
In Europe, it's used to treat sick large animals, which are very expensive to replace. (Cows cost over a thousand dollars) In India, it is fed to 100% of healthy chickens to make them grow faster, because their immune systems don't have to deal with bacteria anymore, and so more energy goes into growth. The number of reproducing bacteria being exposed to antibiotics, (and therefore with a chance to develop immunity) is orders of magnitude higher with what Indians are doing than with what Europeans are doing.
- blattimwind 9y ago
  (meta) I suggest to deliver a counter-argument instead of downvoting and flagging an argument you don't like.
  - norikki 9y ago
    Is this comment directed at me? I did provide a counter argument, and I didn't downvote or flag anyone.
zo1 9y ago
I don't think it really matters how it's being painted. If it's true/fact (and we are here discussing it), then it's a problem that needs solving, period. Let's not devolve this into "but you did it first so I can do it too" detractions that won't help prevent biological consequences for the rest of society.

mofeien 9y ago

How big of an influence towards not eating cheap chicken anymore should the overuse of antibiotics be in your ethical framework? Relating to "buying fair-trade coffee for the plantation worker's sake", "not driving (combustion) cars because of environmental impact", etc. I find it hard to estimate. For me, the antibiotics situation had only sub-conscious influence; the concrete, formulated reasoning was more like this: Before becoming completely vegetarian, I started preferring big animals like beef and pork over chicken because their amount of meat per animal killed is higher. Then I stopped eating beef because of its climate implications. Finally someone told me pigs are actually quite intelligent so even though it's just few animals per kg of meat, their ethical weight weighed more heavy again. Luckily at this point it was not a big step anymore and pretty easy to stop eating meat altogether.

spraak 9y ago
By completely vegetarian do you mean vegan? Because if you've come this far but still consume dairy or eggs, you might consider how the milked cow or egg laying chicken still lives a horrible life and eventually is slaughtered, too. Edit: I'm vegan, for some of the above reasons, but also for other reasons.

yeukhon 9y ago

When I shop, I want oragnic meat. But it remains a myth to me whether one brand is “more organic” than others. Can I trust the simple “organic approved” stamp? What’s in theirs anyway? What about the organic soil in my backyard I use to grow my delicious tomatoes? Free range chicken are completely organic? Not necessary, a misconception. What exactly is “organic”? Antibacterial resistance is becoming more evident. Beside regulate the use of antibotics (and pesticide) in food source, we should not overlook the overuse of antibotics in medical treatments [1][2][3]. Patients often do not understand what antibotics are for, and they would ask their doctors to prescribe antibotics even when antibotics are absolutely unnecessary. Some doctors will give in because the prescription would avoid confrontation with the patient and therefore will give the patient an illusion he/she is receiving the full treatment. Antibacterial resistance affects now and our future generations. Look up “antibotic resistance” in Google News and you will find hundreds of news articles over the years. [1]: https://www.cdc.gov/features/antibioticuse/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/features/antibioticuse/index.html [2]: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/05/170509121924.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/05/170509121924.h... [3]: http://www.utswmedicine.org/stories/articles/year-2017/antibiotics-evidence-based-medicine.html http://www.utswmedicine.org/stories/articles/year-2017/antib...

spraak 9y ago
Simplest (not easiest) personal solution is to not eat meat (or any animal products)
- Gupie 9y ago
  Neither will help you if you for example pick up a resistant strain while for example in hospital.
  - spraak 9y ago
    Yeah, but that's not the point.
    - Gupie 9y ago

0xmohit 9y ago

Research by the Centre for Science and Environment revealed that 70% of the milk sold in India is adulterated [1]. Unfortunately, there are little or no checks by the government agencies and businesses continues to sell adulterated products. People sell milk prepared out of refined oil and detergents. It has been covered widely [2], but the practice continues unabated. It becomes hard to trust those selling organic stuff (milk, vegetables or chicken) as they are practically willing to supply as much quantity as one wants to procure. Even vegetables sold in India are dangerous [3]. [1] http://www.cseindia.org/content/adulterated-milk-what-indians-are-drinking http://www.cseindia.org/content/adulterated-milk-what-indian... [2] https://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2012/01/10/most-indian-milk-adulterated/ https://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2012/01/10/most-indian-m... [3] https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/City/Lucknow/Veggies-on-steroids-are-softly-killing-you/articleshow/4717994.cms https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/City/Lucknow/Veggies-on-...

spraak 9y ago
My personal solution has been to give up all animal products.
- kurthr 9y ago
  How does that help with the adulterated vegetables?
  - cratermoon 9y ago
    Nobody is dosing vegetables with antibiotics. Bacteria that are pathological for plants generally want nothing to do with the warm, oxygenated environment of people.
    - kurthr 9y ago
      The post user spraak was responding to, who's content I was responding to, which you responded to contained the final line: Even vegetables sold in India are dangerous [3]. and the reference [3] https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/City/Lucknow/Veggies-on-steroids-are-softly-killing-you/articleshow/4717994.cms https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/City/Lucknow/Veggies-on-... which refers to the human active hormones/steroids that are put in Inidan vegetables in a similar effort to marginally improve their yield with unknown, but probable systemic and ecological effects. The point being that unregulated food markets of any sort will lead to unhealthy and societally damaging "externalities" even in the predominantly vegetarian India.

known 9y ago

They're talking about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broiler https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broiler

nofilter 9y ago

So, birds that can't fly very far, are very high. Interesting.

vanderZwan 9y ago

While not quite the same thing, this reminds me of that time when tramadol was found in tree bark in Cameroon and misclassified as a natural product for a while: > [You] can indeed extract tramadol from the stated species – there’s no doubt about it. You can extract three of its major metabolites, too – its three major mammalian metabolites. That’s because, as it turns out, tramadol is given extensively to cattle (!) in the region, so much of it that the parent drug and its metabolites have soaked into the soil enough for the African peach/pincushion tree to have taken it up into its roots. http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2014/09/15/weirdly_tramadol_is_not_a_natural_product_after_all http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2014/09/15/wei...

biztos 9y ago

This is why I was so impressed with the roadside sellers of live chickens I saw in Pune. In a place where the climate is unfavorable to the freshness of meat, and (just like in the USA) the big producers have strong incentives to sell you crap, how do you know the animal you're going to eat is healthy? Observe it alive! Probably not a foolproof method, but better than you're getting at Whole Foods.

thevardanian 9y ago
Is it really better than WholeFoods though?
- biztos 9y ago
  I'm not sure but my intuition says yes: ideally it should work like a farmer's market, where the individual seller is strongly invested in not cheating you. So you have that, plus whatever level of knowledge you have about chickens (probably pretty extensive if you buy them live all the time). And the freshness, specifically, is guaranteed. With Whole Foods you have whatever trust you want to put in Amazon not over-squeezing the margins on the chicken-supply chain, plus the warm fuzzy "I can afford Whole Foods" feeling. In aggregate I think food regulations work pretty well in the US but I think the people I saw buying those chickens were making more informed choices than I would even at a Whole Foods or equivalent "Big Organic" outfit.
  - Libturd 9y ago
    amazon? WF has been selling bell and evan's air chilled chicken for many, many years. you have literally no idea what you're talking about, kiddo.
reaperducer 9y ago
Alive != healthy, sanitary, or suitable for consumption.
- vickychijwani 9y ago

drak0n1c 9y ago

There's a bit of a Trolley Problem here. 194,000,000 Indians experienced starvation and malnutrition in 2014-2015. If antibiotics greatly speeds animal growth, aids reproductive success, and increases muscle mass perhaps it's a necessary temporary risk in order to increase the food supply and drive down food prices. Antibiotic resistant diseases claimed around 700,000 lives in 2014 according to the CDC. Animal feed is unproven to be contributing factor, and only a partial one if so.

volune 9y ago
We must do whatever it takes to maximize human populations. Whatever it takes.
- fellellor 9y ago
  More like we must help our starving fellow citizens. Note: It's easy to counter ridiculous arguments, and derail an entire conversation in the process.
  - hyperdunc 9y ago
    The message you replied to may be facetious, but it makes a fair point. There is too much emphasis on alleviating the suffering of people who probably shouldn't exist in the first place. In the 90s in Ethiopia there was a famine caused by drought, lack of development and especially over-population. Affluent countries gave tonnes of food aid and reduced the size of the catastrophe. Soon afterwards, the population of Ethiopia exploded. As a collective they had learnt nothing about the danger of over-population. In India, there's also a lack of social awareness about the impact humans have on the environment - but the issue isn't famine. Rather, the huge population is bolstered by developments such as modern farming techniques that produce food of dubious quality. Generally, humans (in the third world in particular) are like most species in that their populations increase to the limit of what development and the environment supports. Sudden environmental changes and rapid, careless development bring suffering to many of the extra millions that exist. And when suffering occurs, never does anyone of influence say that perhaps humans should stop breeding like rabbits and that perhaps a catastrophe is nature's way of telling us that. Instead, with every catastrophe we hear pontificating about how terrible it is, and often foreign entities will rush to give aid and thereby reinforce the irresponsible collective behaviour of the societies that are suffering. Does that sound heartless? It's not quite so heartless as how suffering individuals are treated by their own societies. When a society is mal-developed and contains hundreds of millions, the suffering of an individual is negligible to the whole. In these circumstances it is likely that only mass suffering will cause reflection and change. Suffering societies need to learn from tragedies and take collective responsibility by reducing their population numbers and valuing the lives of their members.

calimac 9y ago

Hippie libtards freak out over antibiotics in their chicken but beg to be injected with just as strong antibiotics at first sneeze of the flu? ...Just saying People are for the most part completely retarded.

kbhn 9y ago

It's not a popular opinion to share online due to how ingrained food choices are into our lives (memories, communion, celebratory meals, etc), but if this development concerns you I highly recommend exploring a plant-based diet. I've been meat/dairy free for about a year now and it's been one of the best decisions I've ever made.

jtwebman 9y ago
I too am on a whole plant based diet for over a year. I feel like I am 20 again.
dragonwriter 9y ago
> It's not a popular opinion to share online It is actually one of the most popular lifestyle opinions people share online and in real life, aside from proselytizing things generally recognized as religions, and has been for probably a couple of decades.
- hycaria 9y ago
  Yeahhhh not on HN. People here are very hyped by lab meat and reversing climate change thanks to science and technology, so any change of diet is not necessary. Especially since so many people here are convinced by keto diets, whic relies heavily on animal protein.
  - XR0CSWV3h3kZWg 9y ago
    I've been leaning heavier on a plant based diet and generally eating lower on the food chain. For me the main advantages are environmental and ethical, both of which should be had with lab meat.
    - hycaria 9y ago
      I am a vegetarian, just wanted to share my impressions about HN's reaction to plant based diet suggestions :)
9y ago

deleted 9y ago

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nnain 9y ago

Gosh, I hate how organised, and lethal Venky's and similar companies are. They need to be checked in news, ALL the time. (Just shared this on all my social media. I hope the news spreads far and wide.)

perseusprime11 9y ago

Is this one of the causes as to why humans are developing resistance to antibiotics?

mixas 9y ago

Factory farming was literally non-existent in India about 15-20 years ago. And when it started it was advertised and promoted as a "cleaner" alternative to buying from traditional sources. When morality and responsibility is moved away from the individual, the unscrupulous rise up to dominate the market. Europe isn't as rosy either as it is often painted. The supermarkets (near duopoly), would sell anything at any price as long as they can get away with it.