Johann Hari: Cheap meat, MRSA and deadly greed

[marmar]

from the Independent UK:



Johann Hari: Cheap meat, MRSA and deadly greed
If they aren't stopped soon, the WHO warns we are facing a 'doomsday scenario of a world without antibiotics'

Friday, 17 June 2011


Here is a news story that could determine whether you live or die. Many of the world's scientists are warning that one of the mightiest weapons doctors have against sickness is being rendered useless – so a few people can get richer, for a while. If they aren't stopped soon, the World Health Organisation warns we are facing "a doomsday scenario of a world without antibiotics". It will be a world where transplant surgery is impossible. It will be a world where a simple appendix operation will be as routinely lethal as it was in 1927, before the discovery of penicillin. It will be a world where pneumonia and TB and gonorrhea are far harder to deal with, and claim many more of us. But it's a world that you and I don't have to see – if we act on this warning now.

As the scientists I've interviewed explain it, antibiotics do something simple. They kill, slow down or stall the growth of bacteria. They were one of the great advances of the 20th century, and they have saved millions of us. But they inherently contain a problem – one that was known about from very early on. They start an arms race. Use an antibiotic against bacteria, and it kills most of it – but it can also prompt the bacteria to evolve a tougher, stronger, meaner strain that can fight back. The bacteria is constantly mutating and dividing. The stronger the antibiotic, the stronger some bacteria will become to survive. It's Darwin dancing at super-speed.

So the more we use antibiotics, the more we lose them. It's a battle played out on human bodies and in human wounds, with sky-high stakes. In many developed countries today, MRSA kills more people than Aids. The obvious conclusion, then, is that we should use antibiotics sparingly, and only when they are really needed to treat the sick. But in one crucial area we are doing the exact opposite – for the sake of a few people's profits.

In the United States, Latin America, and Asia, animals being farmed for meat and milk are being automatically given antibiotics in their food all day – irrespective of whether they are healthy or sick. It's like slathering your child's Cornflakes with antibiotics, all year round. Some 80 per cent of all antibiotics in the US go straight into farm animals. This speeds up the race massively. It's like taking bacteria to the gym and giving them a constant work-out – and then unleashing them on the rest of us. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-cheap-meat-mrsa-and-deadly-greed-2298567.html

[FLPanhandle]

1. Factory farming

I'm in no way a vegetarian, but I agree with putting an end to factory farm techniques and if meat prices shoot up, then so be it.

[snot]

2. K&R'd!

[Shandris]

3. Purely anecdotal, but one thing I have observed year after year...

...is that the people I knew who were raised in an ultra-clean home environment -always- got sicker than I, someone who wasn't used to such a...pristine lifestyle after the age of 12 or so...was. It seemed like being in such a near-antiseptic environment had weakened their bodies' ability to fight off germs and infections. This trend didn't just cover me though...it covered everyone I personally knew who came from less pristine (read: generally poor) conditions.