Vous êtes sur la page 1sur 2

As it turns out, this whole bit about the use of antibiotics in livestock and po ultry is a complex issue.

Its well beyond anything that anyone would guess at fi rst blush. The best online summary is the position paper put out by Food Market ing Institute. Curiously enough, it doesnt have a year on it. Based on the refe rences, Id guess it was probably around 2005. The Food and Drug Administration has approved the use of therapeutically low dos es of antibiotics in feed. However, very few studies were conducted. They deci ded that giving little bits of antibiotics to animals would help avoid illness. What this means in practical life is that they will grow faster and produce mor e meat prior to being slaughtered and eaten. Everybody agrees that using too many antibiotics in humans can cause humans to b ecome resistant to those antibiotics. This has been blamed on everything from p atients who want a prescription for an illness that isnt caused by bacteria to do ctors feeling they need to give a prescription to justify their fee. This kind of talk has been around for a long time. There is a new body of scientific evidence that strongly suggests there is a lin k between low level use of antibiotics in farm animals and an increased resistan ce to the same or similar antibiotics that are given later to humans. However, m uch of the evidence is not necessarily direct. Humans are given newer and more sophisticated antibiotics all the time ones that have undergone molecular changes that allow them to remain effective. Even a hu man who has never been exposed to antibiotics before may already be resistant. Most of the time, people get antibiotics in one of two ways they are directly pr escribed or they have been used in the feed of animals they eat. The Department of Agriculture and all kinds of people have developed guidelines to limit low l evel use. Even the McDonalds Corporation, which is perhaps the largest private b uyer of livestock products, has taken a position. They have started requiring s uppliers to stop using antibiotics purely as growth promoters if they are those that are also given to humans. The people who grow animals and sell meat to folks like McDonalds challenged this as being an unscientific decision because there isnt enough evidence. So we are back to an idea that comes up often in research science. How much evidence is enough evidence? Ive always felt the answer is that you dont risk human life if there is another way to do it. In truth, this creates a controversy where human life is pitted against increase d profitability. Corporations want to grow bigger and fatter and make more mone y. There are a couple of studies that are cited by several different texts that are probably considered classic by this time like the one by the Canadian Broad casting Corporation that looked at salmonella, campylobacter and E. coli and the ir very clear increase in resistance to antibiotics. Antibiotics have also become a major cause of human and animal illness in United Kingdom and Europe. The United Kingdom and Europe seem to have been ahead of u s in banning this process. They seem to be, as in some other things, a little bi t more willing to bite the bullet for a loss of profitability when lives can be saved. In Minnesota, infections from Campylobacter jejuni a group of antibiotics freque ntly used in livestock and poultry were shown to increase dramatically between 1 992 and 1998. And were talking about bacteria that are taken in samples from hum ans who are suffering from food borne illness. Syneicid a brand name whose generic is Quinupristin/Balfopristin is an antibioti

c that patients just havent been exposed to. Its usually used as a last resort ki nd of treatment for bacteria that are resistant to all other antibiotics. If th is doesnt work, people can die. The scientific community doesnt have any one position. The strongest opponents a re people like the World Health Organization and other people I would tend to be lieve. Even the American Medical Association has adopted a resolution that oppo ses all use of these antibiotics. Unfortunately, these positions seem to be the last thing anyone considers when making their determinations. One of the questions that should be raised by the American Veterinary Medical As sociation is whats good for the animals. But it looks as if many of their studie s are done in cooperation with those who manufacture medications that are given to animals, so one can hardly expect such research to be without bias. There are some who claim that the data isnt clinically significant such as the Eu ropean Federation of Animal Health. They claim that anti-microbial resistance do esnt affect a large number of humans and therefore could be used as a growth prom oter. If I have one bias here, it should be clear. Early in my career, I used animals in clinical research. I cant say that euthanasia of an animal is my favorite th ing to do, but I believe that species are centric. A person becomes a physician to save a human life. Through all of the bickering as nicely as it is reviewed by people such as the Food Marketing Institute it comes down to what is more im portant. Is it human life or money produced by an industry? If we do not alway s choose human life, we are not being true to our own species. I dont know how long it takes and I dont know what the numbers are. But with ever y antibiotic used and every drug prescribed, we should not be treated as less th an animals. We are treating the whole of the earth. And as medicine begins loo king at sustainable practices for the first time, we need to look at the context of the whole earth. If we dont, we are promoting the death of the human species .

Vous aimerez peut-être aussi