Meat industry unhappy over limiting the use of antibiotics

[n2doc]

By Karen Dillon
Sunday, October 31, 2010
KANSAS CITY, MO. - For decades, factory farms have used antibiotics even in healthy animals to promote faster growth and prevent diseases that could sicken livestock held in confined quarters.

The benefit: cheaper, more plentiful meat for consumers.

But a firestorm has erupted over a federal proposal recommending antibiotics only when animals are actually sick.

Medical and public health experts in recent years say overuse and misuse of antibiotics pose a serious public health threat by creating new strains of bacteria that are difficult to treat - both in animals and humans.

"Over time, we have created some monster bugs," said Russ Kremer, a Bonnots Mill, Mo., farmer who speaks nationally about the threat to the food supply. "It is truly harmful to everyone to feed antibiotics to animals just for growth promotion and economic gain."

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/30/AR2010103000071.html

Ah, the MeatBiz- Working hard every day to make Vegetarians out of all of us!

[Incognitus Czar]

1. aw man, i like cheap meat....

why can't we have our cake and eat it too?

[Javaman]

2. Meat cake? nt

[Kolesar]

3. Beef cake!

[Javaman]

4. ohhhh...cannibalism. nt

[NickB79]

5. Not just on factory farms do they this either

Any farmer, big or small, can get access to basic antibiotics dirt-cheap. My dad used to buy (and probably still does buy) tetracycline powder by the 5-lb bag, and mix it into the pig and cattle feed we would grind up on the farm. The livestock weren't usually sick, but he did this pre-emptively. This was common practice among all farmers in the area, not just the big operations.

[happyslug]

7. Penicillin I can see, it is almost useless anymore but tetracycline?

Tetracycline was the second big break through in Anti-bionics. Unlike Penicillin it could enter the brain water barrier. This was most noticeable with Syphilis. Once a person was infected with Syphilis, it took about three months for Syphilis to penetrate the water membrane around the brain. If that person received Penicillin during that time period, he or she would be cured of the disease, but if Syphilis entered the brain, it was impossible for Penicillin to attack the syphilis bacteria and the person would suffer the same problem as if he or she had never been cured of the disease (this had also been true of Sulfa drugs, the earlier cure for many diseases).

This all changed with tetracycline, for Tetracycline could penetrate the brain water membrane and syphilis. Thus it is a much more important drug then Penicillin. Tetracycline kills everything Penicillin can kill plus more. In fact the only time I have been given Penicillin was for an infection of the teeth by my dentist, so to get the inflammation down so he could do a root canal. Such an infection is all Penicillin is good for nowadays. Thus I have no problem with Penicillin even being made over the counter, it is so common and abused by the Agricultural community permitting people ready access to it will NOT cause that much more harm (i.e. exposed more disease to Penicillin so that the variation of that disease that survives an attack by Penicillin becomes the norm and thus Penicillin loses what if any affect over that disease).

Once you get beyond Penicillin, you have the problem that more and more diseases have become immune to more and more antibiotics. While the Medical Community is partly to blame (Use to give Antibiotics for anything including viral infections which such antibiotics are ineffective) the big blame is the agricultural community who wants to use Antibiotics to make their cattle fat. This has to stop just to preserve the remaining effectiveness of the surviving antibiotics. Part of such an ban would be to make Penicillin over the counter, thus making it easy for people to get Penicillin and thus slow the demand for more effective antibiotics. That is the one-two punch we need to save antibiotics from becoming useless in the long run.

Yes, I am willing to sacrifice Penicillin in an effort to ban the use of the other Antibiotics in feed lots, first I think it is a price we will have to pay, and second Penicillin has been so abused that it is becoming more and more useless and thus fit to be sacrificed to save the rest of the Antibiotics.

[NickB79]

8. Nope, definitely sure it was tetracycline

For example: http://www.jefferslivestock.com/tetramed-324-hca/camid/LIV/cp/0034718/cn/390/

5 lb, water-soluble tetracycline for livestock, only $70.

[happyslug]

9. My point was it should NOT have been allowed, not that is was NOT done

I believe it when you said it was Tetracycline, it should NOT have been, but there is no reason to say it was NOT. My point was is should NOT have been Tetracycline. It should not have been Penicillin either, but if we have to sacrifice one of them, Penicillin is the better choice to be sacrificed on the alter of profit at all costs.

[kestrel91316]

6. Boo hoo, slackers. Try BETTER FARMING PRACTICES so your animals

aren't sick in the first place.