Pet-Human Link Studied in Resistant Bacteria

[RedEarth]

Antibiotic resistance has long been an important human health problem. But now it is also showing up in a small but growing number of pets in this country, Canada and Europe, scientists and federal health officials said on Tuesday at the International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases here.

The health officials said they did not want to sound too loud an alarm. But they said they wanted to learn more about the problem that has developed involving the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus, the most common cause of staphylococcal infections among people.

The same genetic strains of S. aureus have been found among human and animal cases, suggesting a connection.

Dr. Nina Morano, an official of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention here, said at a news conference that the problem was serious enough that her agency was adding questions about exposure to dogs, cats and other pets in large studies intended to determine their role in human staphylococcal infections.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/22/health/22infect.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

[Trillo]

1. The last few times I took my pets to the vet,

the antibiotic of choice seemed to be Baytril. It seemed as though it was given for practially any and everything. That's what the vet told me. "Like a magic pill."

[Mojorabbit]

2. They overused it in chickens

and now a lot of bugs are resistant to it. It is close to Cipro. I do wildlife rehab and have had lots of incidences lately where it did not work, the organisms the wild bunnies were growing were resistant.

[Trillo]

3. I've read that.

Whatever happened to the idea that you use something older and/or less wide-spectrum, then modify the drug used based upon sensitivity testing or poor clinical response?

[kestrel91316]

4. I have to admit I am guilty of using Baytril, though I do not

throw it at EVERYTHING, lol. It is my favorite for chronic or recurrent urinary tract infections because it has virtually no GI side effects, which is critical for owner compliance in kitties. And I can safely use it long-term if need be. It also gets into bone, so it's helpful in bone infections.

I like plain old amoxicillin for bite wounds, abscesses, and other minor trauma. I like Clavamox also, though a fair number of cats get upset tummies and have to stop taking it mid-treatment and THAT can induce resistance. We no longer throw antibiotics at upper respiratory infections as much as we used to. I use l-lysine to manage feline herpesvirus (upper resp and ocular dz), and it's not an antibiotic at all.

I routinely run urinalysis with culture/sensitivity on my UTIs and with only one exception I have never found any of the bugs to be the least bit resistant to anything. I did turn up a multiply-drug-resistant E. coli UTI in a 21-yr-old cat a couple of years ago. There were literally NO treatment options for the cat. I had never had her on any antibiotics up til then, and I can only think that she picked up the resistant bug from a person on antibiotics who had it first. Our normal GI microflora, if left to their own devices, aren't resistant to much of anything.

The common bite wound bug, Pasteurella multocida, never gets resistant to anything, IIRC, so we use simple old-school stuff like amoxicillin for it - nothing fancy needed.

That said, I think a lot of veterinarians do not understand proper use of antibiotics. But neither do huge numbers of physicians, who throw antibiotics at every head cold they see.

Instead of getting out a microscope, physicians need to look in the mirror for at least some of their answers.........but it's SOOOO easy to blame those stupid, uneducated vets, lol.

[Mojorabbit]

5. I use it too kestral

in wild buns. You know how delicate their tummies are. I had an incident last month of one with a clostridium infection resistant to it and had a group of squirrels with klebsiella resistant to it too and they were in horrible shape. I wonder if it is in the pet foods that are made from chicken or in the environment, ie water from waste fro being used indiscriminately in chickens.

[kestrel91316]

6. I blame the lion's share of the bacterial resistance problem

(at least the veterinary role) on misuse of antibiotics as a "growth promotant" in livestock feed in our industrialized agribusiness food production system. NOT on pet veterinarians treating their individual patients. After all, people do not routinely ingest their pets or their pets' waste. But they DO routinely ingest livestock AND THEIR WASTE.