3 ms·

> I have never heard of someone becoming allergic to an antibiotic due to consumption. It may be rare, but I don't think we can dismiss it just because it's ra

> I have never heard of someone becoming allergic to an antibiotic due to consumption. It may be rare, but I don't think we can dismiss it just because it's rare. Seems to me the salient question is whether any of the antibiotics that are used on livestock are even related to penicillin. I don't know the answer, but if they're not, that would certainly cast doubt on the claim.

bryans 13y ago
When I say improbable, I don't mean that it can happen but is rare. I mean it's improbable (or impossible) for it to ever happen at all, because that's just not how the body works. Allergies aren't developed by ingesting the item responsible for the reaction. The body doesn't see penicillin for the first time and arbitrarily decide to say "screw it, I'm out." If you have a noticeable reaction, it's because your immune system mistakenly (or properly) identifies the ingested substance as harmful and is being overzealous about fighting it. But how your immune system will react to any particular foreign body is already established prior to ingestion. So, could someone develop a more severe reaction after such prolonged exposure and stress being put on their immune system? No doubt. But the over exposure did not create the intolerance, it just temporarily exacerbated it. All that said, I just looked up whether antibiotics from the penicillin family are used in livestock. It seems that regulations require any poisons, drugs or other contaminants with the potential to be passed to the consumer through ingestion, must both be a relatively low dosage and completely out of the animal's system prior to slaughter.
- ScottBurson 13y ago
  > Allergies aren't developed by ingesting the item responsible for the reaction. Aren't they? I had no trouble finding an example to contradict you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allergy#Non-food_proteins http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allergy#Non-food_proteins (first paragraph) In general I'm not aware that we know all the causes of allergies. > It seems that regulations require any poisons, drugs or other contaminants with the potential to be passed to the consumer through ingestion, must both be a relatively low dosage and completely out of the animal's system prior to slaughter. What do you think "completely" means? It doesn't mean zero or even "undetectable"; it means there's some threshold level, anything below which is considered acceptable. If you trust the people who are setting those thresholds, you have a lot more faith in the system than I do.
  - bryans 13y ago
    That paragraph doesn't contradict me. The contrast in percentages is actually showing the true number of people with latex allergies. The allergy presents itself more often in healthcare workers because the prolonged exposure is exacerbating an existing mild allergy. This causes the immune system to produce and maintain a greater amount of the relevant antibodies, at which point a latex allergy test will return positive. The latex itself, however, is not what caused the allergy to develop in the first place. As for the livestock regulations, I completely agree with you. I'm still going to eat steak every day, but I agree nonetheless.
    - ScottBurson 13y ago
      And that couldn't happen in the case of repeated low-level exposure to penicillin? I don't see the difference.
      - bryans 13y ago
        It can happen, but increased presence of symptoms is not the same thing as developing an allergy. Exposure does not cause a nonexistent allergy to become existent, it causes a mild allergy to become an aggravated mild allergy. The allergy was already there, it just wasn't presenting noticeably until exacerbated by prolonged exposure.
        ScottBurson 13y ago
        For the person suffering from the allergy, this seems to be a distinction without a difference. The allergy wasn't severe enough to notice, and then later, it was. This is really quite frustrating. This whole argument is about you clinging to this pedantic distinction between "causing" an allergy and "exacerbating it to the point that you could notice it", as if that were somehow critical, when it has no practical impact at all. As far as I can see, nothing you've said has had anything to do with the original hypothesis. 'sschueller said "I became allergic to penicillin because of U.S meat." We have no idea whether that's true -- as 'sschueller him/herself subsequently admitted -- but I still don't see that we can dismiss it out of hand. Your argument amounts to saying that the claim can be dismissed because it was improperly phrased. That's pointless pedantry at best.

bryans 13y ago

When I say improbable, I don't mean that it can happen but is rare. I mean it's improbable (or impossible) for it to ever happen at all, because that's just not how the body works. Allergies aren't developed by ingesting the item responsible for the reaction. The body doesn't see penicillin for the first time and arbitrarily decide to say "screw it, I'm out." If you have a noticeable reaction, it's because your immune system mistakenly (or properly) identifies the ingested substance as harmful and is being overzealous about fighting it. But how your immune system will react to any particular foreign body is already established prior to ingestion. So, could someone develop a more severe reaction after such prolonged exposure and stress being put on their immune system? No doubt. But the over exposure did not create the intolerance, it just temporarily exacerbated it. All that said, I just looked up whether antibiotics from the penicillin family are used in livestock. It seems that regulations require any poisons, drugs or other contaminants with the potential to be passed to the consumer through ingestion, must both be a relatively low dosage and completely out of the animal's system prior to slaughter.

ScottBurson 13y ago
> Allergies aren't developed by ingesting the item responsible for the reaction. Aren't they? I had no trouble finding an example to contradict you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allergy#Non-food_proteins http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allergy#Non-food_proteins (first paragraph) In general I'm not aware that we know all the causes of allergies. > It seems that regulations require any poisons, drugs or other contaminants with the potential to be passed to the consumer through ingestion, must both be a relatively low dosage and completely out of the animal's system prior to slaughter. What do you think "completely" means? It doesn't mean zero or even "undetectable"; it means there's some threshold level, anything below which is considered acceptable. If you trust the people who are setting those thresholds, you have a lot more faith in the system than I do.
- bryans 13y ago
  That paragraph doesn't contradict me. The contrast in percentages is actually showing the true number of people with latex allergies. The allergy presents itself more often in healthcare workers because the prolonged exposure is exacerbating an existing mild allergy. This causes the immune system to produce and maintain a greater amount of the relevant antibodies, at which point a latex allergy test will return positive. The latex itself, however, is not what caused the allergy to develop in the first place. As for the livestock regulations, I completely agree with you. I'm still going to eat steak every day, but I agree nonetheless.
  - ScottBurson 13y ago
    And that couldn't happen in the case of repeated low-level exposure to penicillin? I don't see the difference.
    - bryans 13y ago
      It can happen, but increased presence of symptoms is not the same thing as developing an allergy. Exposure does not cause a nonexistent allergy to become existent, it causes a mild allergy to become an aggravated mild allergy. The allergy was already there, it just wasn't presenting noticeably until exacerbated by prolonged exposure.
      - ScottBurson 13y ago
        For the person suffering from the allergy, this seems to be a distinction without a difference. The allergy wasn't severe enough to notice, and then later, it was. This is really quite frustrating. This whole argument is about you clinging to this pedantic distinction between "causing" an allergy and "exacerbating it to the point that you could notice it", as if that were somehow critical, when it has no practical impact at all. As far as I can see, nothing you've said has had anything to do with the original hypothesis. 'sschueller said "I became allergic to penicillin because of U.S meat." We have no idea whether that's true -- as 'sschueller him/herself subsequently admitted -- but I still don't see that we can dismiss it out of hand. Your argument amounts to saying that the claim can be dismissed because it was improperly phrased. That's pointless pedantry at best.