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Global Biological Experiment Generates Exciting New Results
New submitter hoboroadie writes "Scientific American Magazine says antibiotic-resistance genes have moved from the incubators of our hospitals and factory farms, and are spreading through diverse species in the wild. Resistance genes have been detected in crows, gulls, houseflies, moths, foxes, frogs, sharks and whales, as well as in sand and coastal water samples from California and Washington. This stuff is getting more and more like a Hollywood script everyday, n'est ce pas?"
We had a half a percent higher profit margin on cattle for a couple decades. That's totally worth having permanent incurable deadly diseases. Tragedy of the commons sucks balls, and time and again, it turns out that the "invisible hand" won't develop any solution to it.
If you use something that kills of the weak members of a given entity over a period of time the result will be the surviving members will become strong. Darwinism is brutal and efficient like that whether you want it to be or not. In this case by over using antibiotics everywhere from handsoap to feed for cows we have resulted in the saturation of the environment. The result was inevitable and it really is a case of we did this to ourselves.
If memory serves Norway prohibits their use in all settings but hospitals and has healthier citizens as a result. It really does boil down to the classic George Carlin germs are good comedy bit. We need regular exposure to germs to become stronger and build healthier immune systems. The only thing were building is stronger and healthier bugs and weaker humans - there's something wrong with that.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/hunting-the-nightmare-bacteria/
Scariest thing I've watched in a long time.
Actually, they've found that Bacteria and other organisms in your body do communicate through geene expression. So yes, Bacteria can change an animal in such a way that the animals own body informs future bacteria how to deal with antibacterial drugs.
Secondly, the devastating bacteriological pandemic is already here. Hospitals around the world are now opperating under the assumption that they now have permanent, incurable Gram Negative bacterial infections throughout their hospitals. Most hospitals wont even release data on the subject. They're finding drug resistant bacteria in the drinking water wells in India. This Genie is already out of the bottle.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gram-negative_bacteria
Wrong agriculture business. This is antibiotic resistance. Monsanto is arguably causing herbicide and pesticide resistance, although such claims are stupid: they made the herbicides and pesticides, and they worked. It wasn't going to last forever if it was used widely, and if it wasn't used widely to make cheap foodstock, what's the bloody point?
They even took steps to limit that much. The terminator seed technology was partly intended to prevent contamination: if the plants can't breed, they're less likely to mix with wild species and contaminate them. Obviously they had a lot of financial interest in it, both because if resistance gets into the pest populations, that's going to make their product worthless. And in response to the controversy and accusations that it would screw over farmers, Monsanto never actually put terminator seeds on the market.
Anyway, pointing fingers is only so helpful, even at the agricultural entities that ARE driving antibiotic resistance. At this point, we know the looming disaster. It's not rocket science or even climate science either. This is high school biology. Businesses can be expected to faithfully act without any regard other than immediate profit. Ignorant patients will always find greedy doctors willing to give them antibiotics they don't need for diseases that aren't bacterial. Fixing the problem won't happen voulontarily. We need legislation to prevent milk from cows treated with antibiotics from being sold in supermarkets cheaper than untreated milk. Same with other livestock. It's an externalized cost: there's an advantage to it that needs to be taken away. We also need to strip the medical licenses of doctors who give out antibiotics for the cold. Either they're shockingly ignorant of the last 20 years of research and aren't fit to be doctors, or they're intentionally contributing to a real health hazard and should face criminal charges.
The article makes it sound as if the crows are themselves acquiring genetic modifications giving them resistance to antibiotic compounds. However, it is the bacteria inhabiting the crows intestine that have acquired the antibiotic resistance genes, not the crows themselves. The article also suggests that antibiotics dispensed in hospitals are somehow a major factor when, in fact, the quantity of antibiotics dispensed in factory farms surpasses the quantity dispensed for human medical needs by orders of magnitude. If antibiotic resistance leads to increased human mortality, blame the steak on your plate, not the poor fellow down the street having surgery at the hospital.
Why aren't doctors allowed to give people sugar pills instead of antibiotics? Of if they are allowed, why aren't they actively doing it...
Some do. My dad used to do this with obstreperous patients who would not take no for an answer when antibiotics and their ineffectiveness on viruses were explained to them. He was honest though. He did not call them antibiotics but rather he would prescribe a regular dose multi-vitamin with a fancy sounding name and tell them that this was the best treatment for them given their condition (usually just a bad cold).
The patients were not exactly happy with not getting an antibiotic but at the same time at least felt they were getting something to treat their condition. On the flip side my dada felt that he has not lied to the patient and, given that they had a virus, he was still giving them the best treatment option both for themselves and humanity at large. However my dad was a doctor years ago (and is now beyond the reach of any human courts!) and in this increasingly litigious world I can well imagine that doctors think twice about doing this. Even if it is in everyone's best interests they don't want to be dragged into some long lasting, expensive court battle just to prove it which is likely what would happen if a patient ever found out they had been prescribed simple vitamins.