4 ms·
This article handwaves over a few key things. The first half of the article discusses how antibiotics in feed make animals grow bigger. However, the whole point
by kens 13y ago
This article handwaves over a few key things. The first half of the article discusses how antibiotics in feed make animals grow bigger. However, the whole point of feed supplements is to give animals more muscle and less fat [1], since that's what customers pay for. So antibiotics in animals go the exact opposite direction from obesity in humans.
Second, antibiotics in feed are pretty much constant, while humans hardly ever take antibiotics. The article mentions children take antibiotics once a year on average, but the median must be very different from the mean. (I expect a few children take antibiotics very often, and most children take them very rarely.) In addition, if taking antibiotics once a year had the same increased growth rate effects as putting them in feed constantly, farmers would do that for the cost saving.
Overall, this article seems to pad out a hugely speculative idea to try to make it seem more plausible.
(I should know better than to get involved in a nutrition discussion on HN.)
[1] A random reference explaning how antibiotics improve meat quality by causing more protein and less fat: http://animalsmart.org/feeding-the-world/growth-promotant-use-in-animal-production http://animalsmart.org/feeding-the-world/growth-promotant-us...
- secstate 13y agoYour random reference is funded by the ASAS which has every reason to promote industry practices that keep costs down: https://www.asas.org/membership-services/member-information/corporate-sustaining-members https://www.asas.org/membership-services/member-information/... However, you're right. This is a poorly written and researched article, and uses a fair number of unsubstantiated "radical" discovery claims to make the article more exciting than it would have been had an actual scientist been tasked to write it. But it's the NY Times ... they've got an agenda too right? (i.e. make money off subscribers and advertisers)
- tmoertel 13y agoThe take-away, however, is that the commonly understood models for relating microorganisms to health, such as the ones that guide doctors' decisions and health policy, do not predict that antibiotics would cause animals to grow more muscle and less fat -- or have any similar effect -- and are therefore likely to be incomplete or wrong in important ways. Most plausible amendments to the models that would cause them to predict the effects we observe in farm animals would also cause them to predict that antibiotics given to humans could have similarly complex and large effects.
- raverbashing 13y agoCorrect, also saying "antibiotics fatten animals" is kind of a stretch, since Antibiotics mean a very large number of substances, divided by families. So, yeah, in the article they mention which ones are used but to stretch that to "antibiotics" is a little too much.
- Symmetry 13y agoI assumed that the article was going to talk about the antibiotics still being present in the meat of the farm animals that were given them, which would tie everything together. But if that was there I missed it.
- corin_ 13y agoIt was mentioned, just the opposite of your assumption. "By the time most meat reaches our table, it contains little or no antibiotics. So we receive our greatest exposure in the pills we take, rather than the food we eat."
- wobbleblob 13y agoThere's another thing the article hand waves over: there is no actual evidence that antibiotics in feed have an effect on the animals' growth. [1] It is yet another piece of farmer folklore, like hail cannons and routine castration. They are believed to work, without any scientific basis. The thing is, farmers believe so strongly in this myth, that even in places where antibiotics are banned as a feed additive, they bribe vets to prescribe their livestock antibiotics for a variety of fictitious ailments, so they can keep giving it. [1] http://www.tufts.edu/med/apua/news/newsletter_33_3555326098.pdf http://www.tufts.edu/med/apua/news/newsletter_33_3555326098....
- wazoox 13y agoThis is even more serious: these morons are making the most revolutionary tool of modern medicine useless for no gain at all? It's crazy.
- 1stop 13y agoI thought the original reason for Antibiotics in feed, was so the farmer could save money on conditions (i.e the farm can be a little bit unhealthy for animals, as they are all on antibiotics... the growth effects were/are secondary...)
- wobbleblob 13y agoNot at all. Antibiotics are added to feed in sub clinical doses.