3 ms·

Why is it that some apocalyptic scientific predictions are accepted, while others gain a culture of denial? Strikes me that one could construct a counter argum

by alan_cx 13y ago

Why is it that some apocalyptic scientific predictions are accepted, while others gain a culture of denial? Strikes me that one could construct a counter argument against this prediction which is as strong as the arguments, for example, climate change deniers use. Yet, no one has done so. I'm struggling to imagine why. Is there profit for the current big players in solving this issue, where as climate change solutions are not so good for current energy supplier? Or something like that?

_delirium 13y ago
There is quite a bit of pushback at times on this issue as well, especially when agricultural use of antibiotics is mentioned as a potential contributing factor. Suggestions to regulate that usage tend to provoke contrary claims that the risk is overblown and contrary studies showing no significant danger.
harshreality 13y ago
How much profit is there in current antibiotics? Only a few of the newer ones are still patented. Aren't the bulk of prescribed antibiotics generics? I don't think it's because of a difference in the profit to be made by solutions (green energy vs antibiotic alternatives), but rather because of a difference in the profit to be made by the status quo (hydrocarbon-based energy companies stand to make huge profits if they can delay the development of green alternatives until there's a major energy crunch). Antibiotic resistance is more obviously traceable to antibiotics use. The greenhouse gasses link to global warming exists, but the skeptics have leverage against it: Western countries contribute more to global warming per capita (right?), but China and India are contributing more overall; anything we try to do is going to be very expensive and cause a modest slow-down of warming at best; the Earth has been warmer than it is now; global warming models are incomplete; the Earth is a very complex dynamic system that might buffer global warming in unknown ways before we get to a crisis. It's more difficult to argue against antibiotic resistance in bacteria being a problem when we can see resistance develop in a lab, and when we've seen the dire consequences of plagues in documented history.
- anon1385 13y ago
  Even the existence of direct and easy to understand causal links doesn't prevent corporate disinformation campaigns if there is money involved. Just look at the history of tobacco propaganda. Cato is still feeding the media articles and quotes denying that there are health risks from second hand smoke. If you want to find an industry where antibiotics crate large profit then look at industrial farming.
  - harshreality 13y ago
    What percentage of antibiotics used in industrial animal farms are still patented, and what's the profit margin and net profit from those antibiotics at biotech companies?
    - anon1385 13y ago
      Farms use the majority of antibiotics: http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2011/07/what-usda-doesnt-want-you-know-about-antibiotics-and-factory-farms http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2011/07/what-usda-do... Altogether, the US meat industry uses 29 million pounds of antibiotics every year. To put that number in perspective, consider that we humans in the United States—in all of our prescription fill-ups and hospital stays combined—use just over 7 million pounds per year. Thus the vast bulk of antibiotics consumed in this country, some 80 percent, goes to factory animal farms.
- haldujai 13y ago
  Actually you're quite right. There aren't any significant profits in the development of new antibiotics (right now) but that is changing as more and more resistance is popping up. Additionally there are new treatments being investigated such as phage therapy (albeit this more of a revival) heavy metals and bacteriocins (protein based).
anon1385 13y ago
If you speak to farmers or others in the meat industry you will find plenty of strong denial about antibiotics in farming being a risk. You will find all the usual arguments: it's impossible for bacteria in animals to ever affect humans, they use different kinds of antibiotics, we will find newer antibiotics to solve the problem Once And For All etc etc. For the most part the lack of widespread public denial is because the public are not talking about this issue so there is little need to modify public opinion. There hasn't been any serious attempt to limit the use of antibiotics in industrial farming in the USA yet[1]. If governments do get serious about that then the denier dollars will start flowing and Heartland and Cato will find shills to write articles about how the economic cost of stopping antibiotic use (here is where they claim it is a total ban when it isn't) in farming outweighs the cost of global pandemics because the people that die will mostly be the economically unproductive old and poor or some similar FUD. [1] http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2012/04/fda-factory-farms-antibiotics http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2012/04/fda-factory-...
- jacquesm 13y ago
  > it's impossible for bacteria in animals to ever affect humans Those farmers should read the book 'spillover'. According to some papers 60% of all pathogens has in recent times jumped from some other species to humanity, and depending on how rigidly you define species you can add the other 40% too.
  - haldujai 13y ago
    Their logic is that the meat will be cooked killing all bacteria and denaturing and DNA remnants. What spillover discusses is referred to as zoonosis, and that's when the animal is alive (or carries a vector that is).
    - jacquesm 13y ago
      To cook it you have to be in contact with it first.
- aclevernickname 13y ago
3pt14159 13y ago
Why? Because some things are testable. Antibiotics can be tested in a lab, while climate science cannot. Furthermore the climate is not behaving like early models predicted it would, so it makes it hard for people to accept (especially after sensationalist movies like An Inconvenient Truth). Also the politics involved are complex. Some countries (like my Canada) use way more oil per person and wouldn't be as affected by climate change.
indrax 13y ago
I'll guess it's because the apocalyptic threat is something direct and personal that we have aversion to. It's "People get sick and the medicines don't work" or worse, YOU get sick and the medicines don't work. It's a simple, easy to imagine situation. Climate change effects don't have the same combination of simple, personal, accurate, and bad.

by alan_cx 13y ago

_delirium 13y ago

There is quite a bit of pushback at times on this issue as well, especially when agricultural use of antibiotics is mentioned as a potential contributing factor. Suggestions to regulate that usage tend to provoke contrary claims that the risk is overblown and contrary studies showing no significant danger.

harshreality 13y ago

How much profit is there in current antibiotics? Only a few of the newer ones are still patented. Aren't the bulk of prescribed antibiotics generics? I don't think it's because of a difference in the profit to be made by solutions (green energy vs antibiotic alternatives), but rather because of a difference in the profit to be made by the status quo (hydrocarbon-based energy companies stand to make huge profits if they can delay the development of green alternatives until there's a major energy crunch). Antibiotic resistance is more obviously traceable to antibiotics use. The greenhouse gasses link to global warming exists, but the skeptics have leverage against it: Western countries contribute more to global warming per capita (right?), but China and India are contributing more overall; anything we try to do is going to be very expensive and cause a modest slow-down of warming at best; the Earth has been warmer than it is now; global warming models are incomplete; the Earth is a very complex dynamic system that might buffer global warming in unknown ways before we get to a crisis. It's more difficult to argue against antibiotic resistance in bacteria being a problem when we can see resistance develop in a lab, and when we've seen the dire consequences of plagues in documented history.

anon1385 13y ago
Even the existence of direct and easy to understand causal links doesn't prevent corporate disinformation campaigns if there is money involved. Just look at the history of tobacco propaganda. Cato is still feeding the media articles and quotes denying that there are health risks from second hand smoke. If you want to find an industry where antibiotics crate large profit then look at industrial farming.
- harshreality 13y ago
  What percentage of antibiotics used in industrial animal farms are still patented, and what's the profit margin and net profit from those antibiotics at biotech companies?
  - anon1385 13y ago
    Farms use the majority of antibiotics: http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2011/07/what-usda-doesnt-want-you-know-about-antibiotics-and-factory-farms http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2011/07/what-usda-do... Altogether, the US meat industry uses 29 million pounds of antibiotics every year. To put that number in perspective, consider that we humans in the United States—in all of our prescription fill-ups and hospital stays combined—use just over 7 million pounds per year. Thus the vast bulk of antibiotics consumed in this country, some 80 percent, goes to factory animal farms.
haldujai 13y ago
Actually you're quite right. There aren't any significant profits in the development of new antibiotics (right now) but that is changing as more and more resistance is popping up. Additionally there are new treatments being investigated such as phage therapy (albeit this more of a revival) heavy metals and bacteriocins (protein based).

anon1385 13y ago

If you speak to farmers or others in the meat industry you will find plenty of strong denial about antibiotics in farming being a risk. You will find all the usual arguments: it's impossible for bacteria in animals to ever affect humans, they use different kinds of antibiotics, we will find newer antibiotics to solve the problem Once And For All etc etc. For the most part the lack of widespread public denial is because the public are not talking about this issue so there is little need to modify public opinion. There hasn't been any serious attempt to limit the use of antibiotics in industrial farming in the USA yet[1]. If governments do get serious about that then the denier dollars will start flowing and Heartland and Cato will find shills to write articles about how the economic cost of stopping antibiotic use (here is where they claim it is a total ban when it isn't) in farming outweighs the cost of global pandemics because the people that die will mostly be the economically unproductive old and poor or some similar FUD. [1] http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2012/04/fda-factory-farms-antibiotics http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2012/04/fda-factory-...

jacquesm 13y ago
> it's impossible for bacteria in animals to ever affect humans Those farmers should read the book 'spillover'. According to some papers 60% of all pathogens has in recent times jumped from some other species to humanity, and depending on how rigidly you define species you can add the other 40% too.
- haldujai 13y ago
  Their logic is that the meat will be cooked killing all bacteria and denaturing and DNA remnants. What spillover discusses is referred to as zoonosis, and that's when the animal is alive (or carries a vector that is).
  - jacquesm 13y ago
    To cook it you have to be in contact with it first.
aclevernickname 13y ago

3pt14159 13y ago

Why? Because some things are testable. Antibiotics can be tested in a lab, while climate science cannot. Furthermore the climate is not behaving like early models predicted it would, so it makes it hard for people to accept (especially after sensationalist movies like An Inconvenient Truth). Also the politics involved are complex. Some countries (like my Canada) use way more oil per person and wouldn't be as affected by climate change.

indrax 13y ago

I'll guess it's because the apocalyptic threat is something direct and personal that we have aversion to. It's "People get sick and the medicines don't work" or worse, YOU get sick and the medicines don't work. It's a simple, easy to imagine situation. Climate change effects don't have the same combination of simple, personal, accurate, and bad.