5 ms·

Another source of antibiotic resistance (which the article forgets to mention) is their routine use in livestock, preventatively and to accelerate growth. I wou

Another source of antibiotic resistance (which the article forgets to mention) is their routine use in livestock, preventatively and to accelerate growth. I would wager that is the far more significant contributor, since there's simply much more of it - compare the total number of cattle in places where such use is allowed (meaning cattle are exposed to antibiotics for most of their lives), versus the number of people being treated with antibiotics (i.e. a very limited population, for a very limited period): https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12029767/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12029767/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6017557/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6017557/

chaostheory 1y ago
It’s not a coincidence that many of the antibiotic resistant bacteria tend to pop up in areas where the livestock industry is located.
- burnt-resistor 1y ago
  Industrial meat agriculture is killing us and the Earth ecosystem in manifold preventable ways if we'd just stop being so selfish and doing the same thing and expecting a different result: - Antibiotic-resistant bacteria evolution - Animal cruelty - Pandemic virus evolution - Climate change - Air, water, and soil pollution
  - like_any_other 1y ago
    > if we'd just stop being so selfish You couldn't be more wrong. The overwhelming majority of people are against animal cruelty and creating more antibiotic resistance through cattle farming, even if it means slightly-to-modestly more expensive meat. The reason it continues is a failure to inform (seen the insides of many factory farms on the news lately?), organize, and act to that end. It is not because of selfishness that it continues (except the selfishness of those profiting from it, but there will always be someone selfish, no matter how selfless the average person gets), but because the virtuous have not gathered enough power to stop it (at home and especially abroad [1]). Self-flagellation will accomplish nothing. [1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/antibiotic-use-livestock-marimekko https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/antibiotic-use-livestock-...
    - kilburn 1y ago
      > even if it means slightly-to-modestly more expensive meat. This is a hard one to prove without trying. A lot of people would say that and then buy the cheaper version when the time comes.
    - burnt-resistor 1y ago
      > The overwhelming majority of people are against animal cruelty and creating more antibiotic resistance through cattle farming, You're seem sure of yourself while being incredibly confused. Strawman fallacy. People may half-heartedly express some things like "they'd buy X if X existed at price Y" but then, time-after-time, they don't do it. Actions are all that matter and are the proof. The actions say most people are happy to maintain cognitive dissonance so long as they don't see how the sausage or hamburger is made. Some "less bad" alternatives are offered in some stores, but these aren't necessarily the standard or popular items because the customer is given the choice to buy Brazilian or American beef raised on CAFOs rather than banning them and banning feeding mostly corn diets altogether. Most consumers and most other buyers will simply choose the cheapest option available, no matter the externalities involved. The corporate meat industry encompasses a powerful lobby that has legal, legislative, and media power to maintain the status quo, and most Americans are low/no information consumers who are happy with (was cheap) fast food and don't think or care how it was produced because they're addicted to UPF. Only a small fraction (<~10%) even put a thought into how their choices matter and not all of those have the luxury to afford alternatives because the precariat are even more precarious these days. It would take radical socioeconomic and political change to undertake unpopular, necessary changes to reduce harm from existential threats. This won't happen until it's already too late and people are dying in massive numbers. Proactive harm reduction is avoided because too much kakisto-klepto-plutocratic forms of government are reactive because they don't care or are too stupid to care. Fundamentally: the raising of animals for meat is impossible to regulate to assure anything close to uniform, humane conditions, biosecurity, and climate neutrality... because it necessitates suffering and resource intensive. People who are ideologically wedded to meat profiteering and consumption will espouse all sorts of bad arguments that there can be "organic, grass-fed" pseudo-permaculture-washed approaches possible, but it's really denying irreducible facts about growing large numbers of animals' cross-contamination with wildlife and people, feed inputs, waste pollution, and slaughtering them. There's no rehabbing a dirty industry except making it seem less bad with token, performative, greenwashing campaigns.
dwd 1y ago
Something else unmentioned is that 70-80% of hospital acquired infections are related to medical devices that are susceptible to the formation of biofilms where the bacteria create a protective layer that antibiotics can't penetrate. For example antibiotic resistant urinary tract infections caused by the use of catheters. Effective antibiotics simply don't work when they can't reach the infection.
- amatecha 1y ago
  Oh, that's messed up. Aren't catheters supposed to be air-tight, sterile and single-use? Or do they reuse them?! >__>
  - cyberax 1y ago
    Nothing can be _completely_ sterile all the time. Urinary catheters also tend to move a bit when inserted, so they tend to slowly transport bacteria from the outside into the inside.
  - notarget137 1y ago
    Sure. But the lubricant they use usually contains antibiotics. Go figure.
  - M95D 1y ago
    > air-tight, sterile and single-use That's the packaging. Once you break the seal, it's contaminated from the surrounding air. But that's not even relevant. When the catheter is inserted, it picks up bacteria from the genitals. No washing and disinfection can remove all of them. Also, like @cyberax said, the catheter can move. The longer it's kept in place, the more bacteria gets upstream.
- nmfisher 1y ago
  Interesting - do you have the source handy?
  - dwd 1y ago
    To be more exact, it is 70-80% of hospital-aquired UTIs are catheter linked. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31532742/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31532742/ The infection rate is initially 3-10% but increases by 5% for every day its left in. Some more information here on biofilm development and sepsis/mortality rates which is chilling. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2963580/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2963580/
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
burnt-resistor 1y ago
It's used to keep cows alive that would otherwise die from being force-fed corn purely for economic reasons. It's the ranchers' choice to make more money at the expense of suffering of all of us and of the animals they torture. I've listened to former KAFO ranch hands bemoan that it's a truly shameful and disgusting practice that needs to be outlawed globally.

chaostheory 1y ago

It’s not a coincidence that many of the antibiotic resistant bacteria tend to pop up in areas where the livestock industry is located.

burnt-resistor 1y ago
Industrial meat agriculture is killing us and the Earth ecosystem in manifold preventable ways if we'd just stop being so selfish and doing the same thing and expecting a different result: - Antibiotic-resistant bacteria evolution - Animal cruelty - Pandemic virus evolution - Climate change - Air, water, and soil pollution
- like_any_other 1y ago
  > if we'd just stop being so selfish You couldn't be more wrong. The overwhelming majority of people are against animal cruelty and creating more antibiotic resistance through cattle farming, even if it means slightly-to-modestly more expensive meat. The reason it continues is a failure to inform (seen the insides of many factory farms on the news lately?), organize, and act to that end. It is not because of selfishness that it continues (except the selfishness of those profiting from it, but there will always be someone selfish, no matter how selfless the average person gets), but because the virtuous have not gathered enough power to stop it (at home and especially abroad [1]). Self-flagellation will accomplish nothing. [1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/antibiotic-use-livestock-marimekko https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/antibiotic-use-livestock-...
  - kilburn 1y ago
    > even if it means slightly-to-modestly more expensive meat. This is a hard one to prove without trying. A lot of people would say that and then buy the cheaper version when the time comes.
  - burnt-resistor 1y ago
    > The overwhelming majority of people are against animal cruelty and creating more antibiotic resistance through cattle farming, You're seem sure of yourself while being incredibly confused. Strawman fallacy. People may half-heartedly express some things like "they'd buy X if X existed at price Y" but then, time-after-time, they don't do it. Actions are all that matter and are the proof. The actions say most people are happy to maintain cognitive dissonance so long as they don't see how the sausage or hamburger is made. Some "less bad" alternatives are offered in some stores, but these aren't necessarily the standard or popular items because the customer is given the choice to buy Brazilian or American beef raised on CAFOs rather than banning them and banning feeding mostly corn diets altogether. Most consumers and most other buyers will simply choose the cheapest option available, no matter the externalities involved. The corporate meat industry encompasses a powerful lobby that has legal, legislative, and media power to maintain the status quo, and most Americans are low/no information consumers who are happy with (was cheap) fast food and don't think or care how it was produced because they're addicted to UPF. Only a small fraction (<~10%) even put a thought into how their choices matter and not all of those have the luxury to afford alternatives because the precariat are even more precarious these days. It would take radical socioeconomic and political change to undertake unpopular, necessary changes to reduce harm from existential threats. This won't happen until it's already too late and people are dying in massive numbers. Proactive harm reduction is avoided because too much kakisto-klepto-plutocratic forms of government are reactive because they don't care or are too stupid to care. Fundamentally: the raising of animals for meat is impossible to regulate to assure anything close to uniform, humane conditions, biosecurity, and climate neutrality... because it necessitates suffering and resource intensive. People who are ideologically wedded to meat profiteering and consumption will espouse all sorts of bad arguments that there can be "organic, grass-fed" pseudo-permaculture-washed approaches possible, but it's really denying irreducible facts about growing large numbers of animals' cross-contamination with wildlife and people, feed inputs, waste pollution, and slaughtering them. There's no rehabbing a dirty industry except making it seem less bad with token, performative, greenwashing campaigns.

dwd 1y ago

Something else unmentioned is that 70-80% of hospital acquired infections are related to medical devices that are susceptible to the formation of biofilms where the bacteria create a protective layer that antibiotics can't penetrate. For example antibiotic resistant urinary tract infections caused by the use of catheters. Effective antibiotics simply don't work when they can't reach the infection.

amatecha 1y ago
Oh, that's messed up. Aren't catheters supposed to be air-tight, sterile and single-use? Or do they reuse them?! >__>
- cyberax 1y ago
  Nothing can be _completely_ sterile all the time. Urinary catheters also tend to move a bit when inserted, so they tend to slowly transport bacteria from the outside into the inside.
- notarget137 1y ago
  Sure. But the lubricant they use usually contains antibiotics. Go figure.
- M95D 1y ago
  > air-tight, sterile and single-use That's the packaging. Once you break the seal, it's contaminated from the surrounding air. But that's not even relevant. When the catheter is inserted, it picks up bacteria from the genitals. No washing and disinfection can remove all of them. Also, like @cyberax said, the catheter can move. The longer it's kept in place, the more bacteria gets upstream.
nmfisher 1y ago
Interesting - do you have the source handy?
- dwd 1y ago
  To be more exact, it is 70-80% of hospital-aquired UTIs are catheter linked. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31532742/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31532742/ The infection rate is initially 3-10% but increases by 5% for every day its left in. Some more information here on biofilm development and sepsis/mortality rates which is chilling. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2963580/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2963580/

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

burnt-resistor 1y ago

It's used to keep cows alive that would otherwise die from being force-fed corn purely for economic reasons. It's the ranchers' choice to make more money at the expense of suffering of all of us and of the animals they torture. I've listened to former KAFO ranch hands bemoan that it's a truly shameful and disgusting practice that needs to be outlawed globally.