Antibiotic-Resistant 'Superbugs' Creep Into Nation's Food Supply

http://www.cnbc.com/id/100653575

by bconway • 13 years ago

37 53 13 years ago

mschuster918• 13 years ago

This is the only thing where I fully support the policy of the Green parties worldwide.

Overusing antibiotics and other medicine, just to be able to grow up more animals in the same space, is plain greed and animal cruelty.

The state should set a fixed minimum for meat prices (under which no product may be sold) and at the same time impose minimum levels of animal rights (roaming space, food variety, no declawing/tail cutting etc.). I know many will shoot me for advocating state regulation, but the free market most obviously has FAILED here.

tfb• 13 years ago

Agreed 100%. I hope this whole super-bug thing has a silver lining, in that it results in better treatment for animals bred for slaughter.

aaronblohowiak• 13 years ago

.. and also require the same standards of any imported meat.

lifeisstillgood• 13 years ago

But why buy meat at all? In terms of efficiency and "feeding the world" the cow lags behind quite seriously compared to that other GMO soya

tptacek4• 13 years ago

Beef is a particularly inefficient protein source.

awolf4• 13 years ago

High quality meat is irreplaceable in the optimal human diet.

emiliobumachar• 13 years ago

Ironic that the broad regulations you're advocating wouldn't address the issue at hand, that you mentioned in the previous paragraph.

How about to make it illegal to give antibiotics to animals that are not sick, or making new antibiotics illegal for animal use for a number of years?

pontifier• 13 years ago

Why don't we have more food irradiation?

tptacek4• 13 years ago

Antibiotics probably improve yield throughout the process, not just after processing.

carbocation• 13 years ago

Giving antibiotics to livestock causes them to gain weight. I suspect that this profitable feature is the primary reason that antibiotics are used in cattle. Does anyone in this field have any info to verify or refute?

twilde• 13 years ago

The primary reason for anti-biotics is due to the fact that the farmers feed their livestock nutritionally devoid but massively cheaper corn - which weakens the overall immune system. Antibiotics are not needed when "organic" measures are put into place and cows are free range and fed better, nutritionally beneficial foods to begin with. But that's costlier, so, not going to happen on a commercial scale, regardless of how inefficient and unsustainable it is to continue.

hownottowrite• 13 years ago

Original source data:

http://www.fda.gov/downloads/AnimalVeterinary/SafetyHealth/A...

colmvp• 13 years ago

Lance Price is quoted in this article.

Here is his testimony before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Subcommittee on Health. It's a pretty short read.

http://democrats.energycommerce.house.gov/sites/default/file...

awolf4• 13 years ago

>These bacteria are finding ways to get around antibiotics in animals

>"We've actually run out of antibiotics that really keep animals healthy," Price said. "We're finding strains of bacteria in animals that are resistant to so many antibiotics."

How about this novel solution: stop raising animals in a way that requires them to guzzle down tons of antibiotics in order to survive.

I love how this article fails to even mention the possibility that livestock animals do not need to ALWAYS BE SICK. Preposterous.

mschuster918• 13 years ago

The problem with capitalism is that pure capitalism does not account for social issues, be them human-related or animal-related. Neither does communism.

But people still believe that raw capitalism (or, in cases like North Korea, communism) can succeed.

awolf4• 13 years ago

Awareness seems to be spreading about the negative health implications of our factory-food system as a whole. It's possible that demand will shift. Capitalism will adapt.

dmm• 13 years ago

Agriculture in the US is absolutely nothing like "raw capitalism". It is extremely regulated. Farmers are subsidized. It's nothing like "raw capitalism" in several very important ways.

InclinedPlane• 13 years ago

It's slightly more complicated than that.

You see, farmers have discovered that if you feed certain animals antibiotics even when they aren't sick typically the animals will grow faster and bigger. This is great for farmers because more pounds of meat means more cash. But there are some significant negative externalities to operating what is effectively a ginormous petri dish veritably designed to encourage the evolution of antibiotic resistant bacteria.

Game_Ender• 13 years ago

Last year the FDA finally made antibiotics in live stock require a prescription [1]. So now you need a complicit vet before you can continuously dose your farm animals with antibiotics.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/12/us/antibiotics-for-livesto...

tomohawk• 13 years ago

If you've ever had grass fed beef as opposed to the stuff you normally find in the grocery store, you know that the meat is much tastier, and much better for you. For example, grass fed beef is a good source of omega 3s.

The problem with most livestock in the US is that it is raised on corn, which is not a nutritious food for them (http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Why_shouldn%27t_cows_eat_corn).

However, it does fatten them up. So, while they are fed this unhealthy diet, they are also fed antibiotics to keep them alive long enough to be sold.

You are what you eat. If you want better food and humanely raised livestock, then educate yourself and stop buying the cheap stuff.

The USDA regulates antibiotics for animals, while the FDA regulates them for humans. The USDAs job is to promote agriculture, and they do not appear to be as concerned about the kinds of side effects that the FDA is. Two very different missions.

It's too bad irradiating food has such negative connotations, as it would be safer than the current approach.

Antibiotic-Resistant 'Superbugs' Creep Into Nation's Food Supply

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