Just the Meat Please

Listen up, peeps--your voice does matter, and it can make a difference.  I know many folks speaking out against the liberal use of antibiotics in animal feeds, and the governing bodies are listening.  In late May, consumer groups lodged complaints with the Food and Drug Administration denouncing the widespread use of antibiotics in animal feed and urged the agency to do more to halt the practice.  And just recently the World Health Organization (WHO) has recommended restricting and even eliminating the use of antibiotics to boost animal growth.  Bravo!

Limiting the use of antibiotics in animal husbandry is suggested to reduce the risk of developing and transmitting resistant microbes to humans.  Antibiotic resistant bacteria, like Methicillin-resistant Staph aureus (MRSA), are believed to be transmissible to humans via farm animals, particularly pigs.  The mode of transmission can include meat consumption, being in close contact with the animals, or through the environment (groundwater contamination).

The European Union has already banned most antibiotics in animal feeds (with the exception of two in poultry feeds) since 2006, and Scandinavian studies have shown that restrictions have led to a decrease in resistant animal bacterial populations.

MRSA is not the only drug-resistant bacteria on the rise in animal products, either.  Bacteria resistant to fluoroquinolones and the most recent generations of cephalosporins have become more common.  Both these classes of drugs are considered essential to human health as a last line of defense to combat the most stubborn infections.  Resistance to third and fourth generation cephalosporins in Salmonella Heidelberg infections in humans has been increasing over the last several years.

According to Beth Karp, senior veterinary epidemiologist with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "Between 2008 and 2010 resistance increased from 8 percent to 24 percent. In retail chickens isolates, resistance in Salmonella Heidelberg increase from 17 percent in 2008 to 31 percent in 2009."

The strain is resistant to nearly all antibiotics.

We are well beyond a wake-up call here.  Antibiotic resistant bacteria is no joke, as we have seen what it can do during mass outbreaks like in 2007-2008.  More and more meat products are contaminated with these super-bugs, and with further neglect, it'll only be a matter of time before we see another one (fluoroquinilone-resistant campylobacter is common in the U.S. in poultry products).

Again I say bravo to the WHO for taking a stand, as well as the USFDA for listening to consumers and passing on their recommendations to the meat growers industry.  As for meat manufacturers, I hope you are listening.  I get wanting to provide product that's beefier and all-around more aesthetically pleasing, but your current practices are a powder-keg waiting to explode.  Hopefully you'll discontinue the practice of pumping-up livestock with antibiotics, hormones or anything else that you might be adding.  Just the meat, please--the people have spoken.

Antibiotics for Viruses: Overprescribed and Useless

Something must be wrong with me--I love to see people squirm. Not just anybody, mind you, but mostly people who have lied, cheated, or acted hypocritically in one way or another. And I especially love to see it in people, or groups, that act arrogantly. C'mon, you know you love it too. We all get a sense of satisfaction when the chickens come home to roost, and these people have to squirm and lie some more to rationalize themselves. Pure comedy.

Take, for instance, the latest study to be published in the medical journal, The Lancet, which has reported that doctors routinely overprescribe antibiotics for viral infections. You don't say? Really? Wow. Seems like that same idea was reported right here in this blog back in October. According to the study, 80% of sinusitis (inflammation of the sinuses) cases in the U.S. are prescribed antibiotics despite the fact that the majority are due to the common cold virus. And just like I said in my October post: Antibiotics don't do diddly against viruses--they're meant exclusively to fight bacterial infections.

OK, here's the good part: The study's authors then attempt to explain the inordinate amount of antibiotics prescriptions by stating that when the patient has had the symptoms for a long time, doctors assume it's due to a bacterial infection....(Pause...silence)

Ah, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha....what a joke. Do any of you buy that baloney? Let me tell you the real deal (and this information comes straight from a medical doctor who taught me in chiropractic college): Doctors prescribes medications at nearly every doctor's visit regardless of the situation because, and I quote, "the patient expects it". That's the truth in a nutshell: Doctors prescribe antibiotics full well knowing they're useless against viral infections, precisely because the patient expects something, not because it's the right thing to do, but because they know the patient wants it and will go somewhere else to get it. In other words, there ain't much of a market for non-prescribing M.D.s, period.

The only reason this study has come out at all is because of the explosion of antibiotic resistant bacteria that have penetrated our world, otherwise, trust me, the practice would continue. Antibiotic resistant bacteria is a growing and severely dangerous phenomenon. There is no longer time to play around, so now the medical community is asking how. But, unfortunately, you'll never get to the truth by hiding it, or in the case of these authors' conclusions, by asking the wrong questions.

I'm going to end this by being as fair as I can to my medical brothers and sisters--it's not totally their fault. Overprescribing antibiotics really is a consequence of what the public wants, and demands--like most things--and people really do yearn for a magic bullet. But what makes the medical clinician at least equally responsible is that they know better. It may be true that a medical business which doesn't prescribe medicines will soon have to close its doors; however, it may be time to start pushing a more health-responsible agenda, which would be to teach patients that their bodies have everything necessary to fight the common cold virus, and that antibiotics are unnecessary, and useless, in these cases. Still--I just love to see them squirm.