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People need stop using antibiotics for everything and use it only when necessary. When Drugs Stop Working-Norway's Answer: http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-205_162-

People need stop using antibiotics for everything and use it only when necessary. When Drugs Stop Working-Norway's Answer: http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-205_162-6014559.html http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-205_162-6014559.html

stingraycharles 13y ago
People aren't the problem; it's the food industry that abuses antibiotics the most. When a pig gets ill, it's way cheaper to give her a dose of antibiotics instead of getting a vet.
- andyjohnson0 13y ago
  Antibiotics are sometimes given to sick animals, but their main use is as growth promoters [1]. Animals that are regularly fed low doses of antibiotics grow faster, meaning that they can be slaughtered earlier and the overall cost of rearing the animal is therefore reduced. "The effectiveness of synercid, a drug of last resort for the treatment of vancomycin-resistant infections, is threatened because of the use of virginiamycin as a growth promoter in chickens and pigs in the United States. Virginiamycin is chemically related to synercid, and bacteria resistant to the one drug also appear to be resistant to the other." [2] [1] http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/livestock/animalcare/amr/facts/05-041.htm http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/livestock/animalcare/amr... [2] http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/our-failing-food-system/industrial-agriculture/prescription-for-trouble.html http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/our-failing-food-...
  - InclinedPlane 13y ago
    Many people will point out that the antibiotics given to animals are mostly different from those used on humans. However, as your example points out there are actually only a small number of families of antibiotics each of which share a specific method of attack on bacteria. And bacteria that become resistant to a cheap antibiotic, like virginiamycin, will do so in a way that also renders them resistant to their more expensive cousins that have been reserved for human use.
- VikingCoder 13y ago
  You just (unintentionally) said that capitalism is the problem. If people were willing to pay for antibiotic-free meat, then farmers would produce it. They would call the vet, and maybe destroy the pig rather than treat it with antibiotics. By the way, you're naively presuming they're using antibiotics when the pig gets sick. Nope, they're using them prophylactically.
  - MartinCron 13y ago
    Antibiotic resistance should be seen as a negative externality of our food system, just like pollution. In the meantime, I will keep buying antibiotic-free meats whenever I can.
  - aclevernickname 13y ago
    > You just (unintentionally) said that capitalism is the problem. That's a strawman fallacy [1]. > If people were willing to pay for antibiotic-free meat, then farmers would produce it. Seeing as most farming in the United States is done on megafarms owned by large corporations [2] that have historically shown to be (to put it mildly) lax on their focus on serving healthy and nutritious products to their customers [3], and that "farmers" in the traditional colloquial sense are now only 2% of the population [4], you'll hopefully understand if I say that your statement has little relevance in the United States in 2013. [1] https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/strawman https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/strawman [2] http://thecabin.net/stories/091001/wor_0910010048.shtml http://thecabin.net/stories/091001/wor_0910010048.shtml [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#Environmental_and_animal_welfare_record http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#Environmental_... [4] http://www.epa.gov/agriculture/ag101/demographics.html http://www.epa.gov/agriculture/ag101/demographics.html
r0h1n 13y ago
> Norwegians are sanguine about their coughs and colds, toughing it out through low-grade infections. > "We don't throw antibiotics at every person with a fever. We tell them to hang on, wait and see, and we give them a Tylenol to feel better," says Haug. I wish more of us would follow this approach and learn to accept being 'sick' for a few days (or even a week) every now and then.
- rdtsc 13y ago
  What I noticed in US is that people are very touchy about being uncomfortable. Doctors are supposed to "fix" problems and make things "comfortable". This usually means "give me antibiotics to kill this infections as fast as possible" and "give me more pain pills, I don't want to feel any slight discomfort". If doctor tells them to drink some hot tea and lay in bed instead they might just switch doctors who will give them antibiotics. Or say a doctor decides that well you can get opiates for your pain but you might become dependent so take some aspirin and tough it out -- that won't work with many. I know I am painting with a broad brush and with a sample of 30 or so acquaintances from both sides of the "pond" here, but it was my impression so far.
  - r0h1n 13y ago
    Alas it is an affliction that is spreading around the world. More and more people I meet are unwilling to tolerate any 'downtime' for minor illnesses like colds.
  - astrodust 13y ago
    It's ironic this attitude comes from the same country that tells you to "man up and walk it off" for just about anything.
    - jerf 13y ago
      "Man up and walk it off" is not uniformly distributed around the country. I give good odds that the rdstc is not from one of those areas. As usual, accusing huge groups of hypocrisy is not well-founded unless you can establish that the hypocritical attitudes really are held by the same people.
fudge 13y ago
Two weeks ago a doctor lost his license here in Norway due to long term, high dosage antibiotic usage: http://translate.google.no/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&prev=_dd&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.vg.no%2Fnyheter%2Finnenriks%2Fartikkel.php%3Fartid%3D10142879 http://translate.google.no/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&pre...
- vidarh 13y ago
  His case is/was extreme: He was prescribing extreme high doses for extended periods of time to a small number of patients because some believe it works against extreme cases of Lyme disease, despite total lack of evidence. It's rather shocking that he's been allowed to keep practicing as long as he has.
cafard 13y ago
My chief complaint about the GP we used to go to was that she was fond of saying "Well, it's probably viral, but here's some xyz just in case."
VikingCoder 13y ago
Capitalism and herd management are competing forces. We Westerners think we're individuals, and each of us are free to make our own decisions. We completely ignore the medical advice, and want the best treatment possible. We want to take the antibiotics. We want a biopsy of that lung nodule. We want an MRI for that persistent migraine. We want to decide whether our child receives "possibly dangerous" vaccines. Statistics be damned. Unfortunately, with antibiotics on one end of the spectrum (we take too many), and vaccines on the other end (we don't take enough), herd management is the right answer (we should all be pretty much forced to do the medically-suggested thing), and we utterly reject that. It's the tragedy of the immune system commons.

stingraycharles 13y ago

People aren't the problem; it's the food industry that abuses antibiotics the most. When a pig gets ill, it's way cheaper to give her a dose of antibiotics instead of getting a vet.

andyjohnson0 13y ago
Antibiotics are sometimes given to sick animals, but their main use is as growth promoters [1]. Animals that are regularly fed low doses of antibiotics grow faster, meaning that they can be slaughtered earlier and the overall cost of rearing the animal is therefore reduced. "The effectiveness of synercid, a drug of last resort for the treatment of vancomycin-resistant infections, is threatened because of the use of virginiamycin as a growth promoter in chickens and pigs in the United States. Virginiamycin is chemically related to synercid, and bacteria resistant to the one drug also appear to be resistant to the other." [2] [1] http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/livestock/animalcare/amr/facts/05-041.htm http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/livestock/animalcare/amr... [2] http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/our-failing-food-system/industrial-agriculture/prescription-for-trouble.html http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/our-failing-food-...
- InclinedPlane 13y ago
  Many people will point out that the antibiotics given to animals are mostly different from those used on humans. However, as your example points out there are actually only a small number of families of antibiotics each of which share a specific method of attack on bacteria. And bacteria that become resistant to a cheap antibiotic, like virginiamycin, will do so in a way that also renders them resistant to their more expensive cousins that have been reserved for human use.
VikingCoder 13y ago
You just (unintentionally) said that capitalism is the problem. If people were willing to pay for antibiotic-free meat, then farmers would produce it. They would call the vet, and maybe destroy the pig rather than treat it with antibiotics. By the way, you're naively presuming they're using antibiotics when the pig gets sick. Nope, they're using them prophylactically.
- MartinCron 13y ago
  Antibiotic resistance should be seen as a negative externality of our food system, just like pollution. In the meantime, I will keep buying antibiotic-free meats whenever I can.
- aclevernickname 13y ago
  > You just (unintentionally) said that capitalism is the problem. That's a strawman fallacy [1]. > If people were willing to pay for antibiotic-free meat, then farmers would produce it. Seeing as most farming in the United States is done on megafarms owned by large corporations [2] that have historically shown to be (to put it mildly) lax on their focus on serving healthy and nutritious products to their customers [3], and that "farmers" in the traditional colloquial sense are now only 2% of the population [4], you'll hopefully understand if I say that your statement has little relevance in the United States in 2013. [1] https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/strawman https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/strawman [2] http://thecabin.net/stories/091001/wor_0910010048.shtml http://thecabin.net/stories/091001/wor_0910010048.shtml [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#Environmental_and_animal_welfare_record http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithfield_Foods#Environmental_... [4] http://www.epa.gov/agriculture/ag101/demographics.html http://www.epa.gov/agriculture/ag101/demographics.html

r0h1n 13y ago

> Norwegians are sanguine about their coughs and colds, toughing it out through low-grade infections. > "We don't throw antibiotics at every person with a fever. We tell them to hang on, wait and see, and we give them a Tylenol to feel better," says Haug. I wish more of us would follow this approach and learn to accept being 'sick' for a few days (or even a week) every now and then.

rdtsc 13y ago
What I noticed in US is that people are very touchy about being uncomfortable. Doctors are supposed to "fix" problems and make things "comfortable". This usually means "give me antibiotics to kill this infections as fast as possible" and "give me more pain pills, I don't want to feel any slight discomfort". If doctor tells them to drink some hot tea and lay in bed instead they might just switch doctors who will give them antibiotics. Or say a doctor decides that well you can get opiates for your pain but you might become dependent so take some aspirin and tough it out -- that won't work with many. I know I am painting with a broad brush and with a sample of 30 or so acquaintances from both sides of the "pond" here, but it was my impression so far.
- r0h1n 13y ago
  Alas it is an affliction that is spreading around the world. More and more people I meet are unwilling to tolerate any 'downtime' for minor illnesses like colds.
- astrodust 13y ago
  It's ironic this attitude comes from the same country that tells you to "man up and walk it off" for just about anything.
  - jerf 13y ago
    "Man up and walk it off" is not uniformly distributed around the country. I give good odds that the rdstc is not from one of those areas. As usual, accusing huge groups of hypocrisy is not well-founded unless you can establish that the hypocritical attitudes really are held by the same people.

fudge 13y ago

Two weeks ago a doctor lost his license here in Norway due to long term, high dosage antibiotic usage: http://translate.google.no/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&prev=_dd&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.vg.no%2Fnyheter%2Finnenriks%2Fartikkel.php%3Fartid%3D10142879 http://translate.google.no/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&pre...

vidarh 13y ago
His case is/was extreme: He was prescribing extreme high doses for extended periods of time to a small number of patients because some believe it works against extreme cases of Lyme disease, despite total lack of evidence. It's rather shocking that he's been allowed to keep practicing as long as he has.

cafard 13y ago

My chief complaint about the GP we used to go to was that she was fond of saying "Well, it's probably viral, but here's some xyz just in case."

VikingCoder 13y ago

Capitalism and herd management are competing forces. We Westerners think we're individuals, and each of us are free to make our own decisions. We completely ignore the medical advice, and want the best treatment possible. We want to take the antibiotics. We want a biopsy of that lung nodule. We want an MRI for that persistent migraine. We want to decide whether our child receives "possibly dangerous" vaccines. Statistics be damned. Unfortunately, with antibiotics on one end of the spectrum (we take too many), and vaccines on the other end (we don't take enough), herd management is the right answer (we should all be pretty much forced to do the medically-suggested thing), and we utterly reject that. It's the tragedy of the immune system commons.