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That's not even based in reality. If you wait until after animals are sick to treat then depending on what disease it is you've lost all or most of a herd due
by willnonya 4y ago
That's not even based in reality.
If you wait until after animals are sick to treat then depending on what disease it is you've lost all or most of a herd due to the way existing regulations require them to be handled.
- biorach 4y agoBased on reality...? Here in the EU we have managed not to loose most of our herds.
- nszceta 4y agoDo you see any problems with prophylactically dosing antibiotics yourself? Anything?
- NegativeK 4y agoHuman living conditions are nowhere near those of livestock. If we want to drop antibiotics, we're going to end up with significantly increased prices of meat due to increased land usage requirements. This would be ecologically good, but socially disastrous.
- nszceta 4y agoCentral Europeans eat a lot of meat and somehow they manage to keep prices under control without slamming animals with antibiotics prophylactically. Land and regulatory compliance costs are much higher than in the US too.
- cesnja 4y agoYes, because they the EU farmers are given ridiculous subsidies.
- biorach 4y agoIt's far from that simple. US farms are also subsidised. Maybe to a lesser extent than the EU but it's significant. There are plenty of farms in the EU that house animals permanantly. I can't speak as to the differences in conditions between US and EU regulations regarding animal housing. It's not at all clear that banning indiscriminate antibiotic use in the US would render farms financially unviable. There are significant trade barriers that mean that meat producers are somewhat insulated from world competition. There would probably be a rise in the price of meat, but how significant is hard to say - there may be some research done on this, maybe not. I don't believe that meat in the EU is significantly more expensive than in the US
- count 4y agolol, so are US farmers.
- timeon 4y agoSooner or later it is going to be socially disastrous anyway.
- barbazoo 4y agoPerhaps that means that industrial meat production is not sustainable and maybe never can even can be.
- runarberg 4y agoGiven a choose between faster onsets of more antibiotic resistant bacteria and a higher price of meat, I think a smart policy choice would be the latter, as the former disaster seems a lot harder to manage then the latter. But maybe this is why I’m not a politician.
- benj111 4y agoanti biotics arent preventative, you have to give them when they actually have the infection, else it doesnt do anything.
- MaxBarraclough 4y agoI'm awfully late to the party, but: that isn't true. They wouldn't spend huge sums on preventative antibiotics if they didn't work. The problem is the negative externality of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
- amanaplanacanal 4y agoI believe the animals are given antibiotics to make them grow faster. I don’t know what the mechanism of action is for that though.
- troyvit 4y agoYou're being down-voted, but you're describing exactly how the U.S. handles outbreaks like this. The avian flu egg shortage is a good example [1][2] I'm not saying those rules are bad, I honestly don't know, but I do wonder how necessary they would be if high concentration livestock operations weren't so prevalent in the U.S. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/flu/avianflu/spotlights/2022-2023/nearing-record-number-avian-influenza.htm https://www.cdc.gov/flu/avianflu/spotlights/2022-2023/nearin... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avian_influenza#Culling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avian_influenza#Culling
- amanaplanacanal 4y agoAvian flu and antibiotics have nothing to do with each other. Influenza is a virus.
- troyvit 4y agoSure but the bigger picture re: the industry and its oversight is what we're talking about in this thread.
- xsmasher 4y agoAntibiotics are used to make the animals grow faster. This is not a case of "we want to keep these animals healthy" it is "we want more meat per animal, and this is a cheap way to get it."
- Gordonjcp 4y agoRight, which is only a thing in the US. Over here we have better livestock rearing practices, and we choose better breeds.
- michael1999 4y agoThe article reports that US producers want this because their stock handling is weak, and improving their practices would be inconvenient. Lots of people raise chickens, swine, and cattle without prophylactic antibiotics. But running the herd through to vax is tougher work than adding cipro to the feed.
- Gordonjcp 4y agoYeah, maybe in the US, where your livestock practices are pretty suspect at best.