Healthy livestock, Sick People

[Lionel Mandrake]

The following LA Times editorial reminds us that Congress has no integrity:

"Year after year, legislation intended to preserve the effectiveness of available antibiotics by limiting their use in livestock is shot down. The latest bills introduced in both houses of Congress have been stalled for close to a year.

"Banning the use of antibiotics in perfectly healthy animals has always been the right thing to do for the health of the American public. Overuse of antibiotics, whether in animals or humans, renders them less effective because it leads to the development of resistant bacteria. Not so long ago, humans were the ones ingesting too many of these wonder drugs, which were meant to fight infection, not acne or the sniffles. More recently, the overuse of antibiotics has been a staple of livestock operations, which feed low doses to animals to prevent disease from sweeping through overcrowded pens and as a growth enhancer. About 13% of the antibiotics given to farm animals are for growth, not medical treatment.

"The industry claims the use of antibiotics keeps expenses down, but its calculations don't include the rising cost to the U.S. of antibiotic-resistant infections, in both health and actual dollars. Exotic antibiotics for resistant infections are far more expensive than the run-of-the-mill medications."

Read the whole editorial:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-antibiotics13-2010mar13,0,6740046.story

[AllentownJake]

1. The Congress of the United State is incapable of any action

on anything that has a business interest attached to it. No matter how much sense it makes.

[upi402]

5. +1 k/r n/t

[Lionel Mandrake]

6. Special interests trump the general interest almost every time.

That's why Medicare can't negotiate drug prices, why single-payer is off the table, why private insurance is mandated under the Senate HCR bill, etc.

[scarletwoman]

11. You've certainly nailed that. It's really gotten beyond ridiculous.

I'm so fed up with this shit.

The question is, what can we do about it? Personally, I'm in favor of setting up guillotines in front of Wall Street, K Street, and the U.S. Capitol; but I suppose people would accuse me of being an extremist...

[SPedigrees]

2. And then there's the pharmaceutical industry that refuses to develop

new antibiotics to keep pace with evolving bacterial populations. Not enough profit in it for them.

[Lionel Mandrake]

7. I don't know about that.

The editorial mentioned expensive drugs to treat superbugs. When enough people get sick enough, maybe big pharma will make a profit on new antibiotics - especially when they can charge whatever the traffic will bear.

[SPedigrees]

8. No, big pharma has stated before Congress a refusal to put money into this area of R&D

claiming there is not enough profit in it. They went so far as to suggest that the government should fund such research & development if they felt it was necessary. I think this was 5 or 6 years ago, if memory serves.

[Lionel Mandrake]

9. If the government funds some of the R&D,

then the manufacturers will make even bigger profits when they market new drugs based on that R&D.

[SPedigrees]

10. Well the govt didn't bite, so we're stuck with a growing population of superbugs

and no antibiotics to counter it. We lose no matter how you look at it.

I'm not sure why there's little profit in antibiotics, but apparently they don't rake in the $$ like viagra and chemo drugs.

[Lionel Mandrake]

13. why is there little profit in antibiotics?

"There are several reasons why it's not cost-effective for the major pharmaceutical companies to invest more in antibiotic research, according to the report. The course of antibiotic treatment is typically short because the drugs help patients get better quickly, and doctors tend to curtail the number of prescriptions they write so as to avoid patients' developing resistance to the drugs. And when resistance to a certain antibiotic inevitably develops, the drug becomes largely obsolete."

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1926853,00.html#ixzz0iDpKvrP7

[Better Today]

3. I don't see how anybody dan figure that the lives our livestock live are healthy.

That being said, I'm all in favor of reducing hormones and antibiotics in livestock

[Lionel Mandrake]

4. The animals generate healthy profits for the industry.

They probably suffer fewer bacterial infections than they would without the antibiotics. Therefore they gain more weight, etc. This doesn't mean that their lives are particularly happy or fulfilling.

I'm also in favor of reducing hormones and antibiotics in livestock. But since you and I are not an industry, our so-called representatives are not really interested in our opinions.

[GoneOffShore]

12. Watch "Food Inc" and read Michael Pollan's books