Let’s get back to the real world, if a cow or a pig is treated with an antibiotic, and then the pig or cow is slaughtered for meat,
GUESS WHAT, the antibiotic is not in the meat, since it is digested as just another chemical.
The amino acids and all the other stuff that is digested, is turned into muscle. Yes folks, even you idiots who live in big cities, you are eating muscle, that is the end product of many processes, well beyond the intestine.
But the panic mongers would propose to us that they found some traces of antibiotics and that is bad news.
Traces of antibiotics will cause problems?
Of course, on the positive side antibiotics increase production by reducing infections and health problems in the population of animals to be slaughtered.
http://beaconnews.ca/blog/2014/01/antibiotics-food-production-threaten-public-health-uofc-prof/
OK John. I gotcha. But when I have to rake antibiotics I NEVER finish the course – I only take them until I’m better. We can beat them but we shouldn’t destroy them. A good boxer knows when he’s won. A good ref stops the fight.
Antibiotic resistant bugs sound pretty scary, and they are a pet project of the guys in infectious disease and the public health people who want to get press–so that they can promote themselves.
For Example–amoxicillin is still a reliable antibiotic after 30 years. Sure there are example of resistance. However if there is an antibiotic that should have been eliminated by bug resistance it’s antibiotics.
I teach residents in emergency medicine, our first line drug for bacterial respiratory tract infections in the very young is still amoxicillin. Imagine that after all the scares and warnings.
Methicillin resistant staph is a problem, but it is not an exploding problem, in fact in my experience it seems to be declining as a problem, but don’t expect the publicity hounds to say so.
The occasional problem with multi drug resistant TB is another example–pretty scare but it has not, I repeat not, turned into an epidemic.
In fact I would say that when an announcement has the word crisis or epidemic in it–be wary and skeptical.
As for the really scary resistant bugs, no doubt they exist, usually out of medical settings.
So you might say it is a problem of perception. And a problem of self promotion and panicmongering.
In medicine I can always tell you a story or provide a case that will make you think the world is coming to an end.
However there are feedback loops in the world of nature that seem to provide us with stability that is not predicted by the noisy crowd.
Funny, the business of many panics and scares sounds like catastrophic global warming, doesn’t it?
John Dale Dunn MD JD Consultant Emergency Services/Peer Review Civilian Faculty, Emergency Medicine Residency Carl R. Darnall Army Med Center Fort Hood, Texas Medical Officer, Sheriff Bobby Grubbs Brown County, Texas 325 784 6697 (h) 642 5073 (c)
I won’t profess any scientific competence to answer my own question here, as I have very little.
Does this use of antibiotics promote the increased resistances we’re seeing in pharmaceutical antibiotics used on humans? If so, there’s a profound tradeoff between increased production efficiency and human risks. I’ll follow the responses with interest.
Apparently, Perdue chickens are different.