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Comment by ocschwar | Hacker News Reader

Bear in mind that in the US, our lovely republican party literally made it illegal to research where the superbugs are being bred.

In the US, the problem is mostly pig and cattle feedlots that rely on antibiotics to keep the animals from being sickened but he crowding. Naturally, there is no proof that superbugs are coming out of the feedlots, because the feedlot owners do not allow any sort of sample collection by scientists.

Now comes the GOP with the "ag-gag" laws, which don't just ban sneaking into these feedlots with cameras. They also ban the smuggling of manure samples from the feedlots.

This is the GOP's war on science: they literally criminalize it.

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> Naturally, there is no proof that superbugs are coming out of the feedlots, because the feedlot owners do not allow any sort of sample collection by scientists.

"In the bed of a truck that they parked on county roads adjacent to ten Lubbock-area feed yards, they set up small, generator-powered vacuums. On a number of windy days, they collected upwind and downwind air samples. The results confirmed their suspicions: downwind, they found antibiotics—specifically tetracycline—present at significantly higher levels than in the upwind samples. Yet as they dug deeper, they discovered something even more worrisome. Along with the antibiotics, they found another hitchhiker: remnants of bacteria that had acquired a gene that made them resistant to tetracycline." (1)

The article also describes the pushback from the CFA (Cattle Feeders Association)

(1) http://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/when-the-dust-settles/

Feeding antibiotics to livestock for faster growth is illegal in Germany, yet we feed around the same amount as the US: http://i.imgur.com/9ybmhwE.jpg

A great example of the stupidity of laws stating "it's fine to do X with benign intent, but it is forbidden to do X with malign intent".

>> Now comes the GOP with the "ag-gag" laws

What states are you referring to? Most of these laws that were introduced in the 1990's have all been deemed unconstitutional in the states where they were passed. Not to mention, any other states that have attempted to pass these laws have failed.

I'm sure you enjoy demonizing the GOP, but I don't see much merit in your argument if there are no states where these laws are currently in effect and nobody has been successfully convicted of violating these laws.

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ag-gag

According to that link, the laws are mostly recent, passed in the 2010s rather than 1990s, e.g. 2014 for Idaho's and 2012 for Missouri's. And I don't see anywhere there that they've all been struck down. Only one is mentioned as having been struck down, Idaho's, and from what I can find that's still being litigated, currently being heard by an appeals court [1].

[1] http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2015/12/idaho-appeals-federal-...

Wyoming's one example:

https://foodpoisoningbulletin.com/2016/wyomings-ag-gag-law-d...

Farming Industry Uses Ag-Gag Laws to Silence Whistleblowers - http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=bbc1af3e-520e-...

New Study Finds “Ag-Gag” Laws Erode Trust in Farmers - http://modernfarmer.com/2016/03/ag-gag-laws-erode-trust-farm...

Do you have any support at all for these assertions?

Farmers massively administer antibiotics so they can keep animals in crowded/unsanitary conditions. If antibiotics were administered properly that would severely affect their revenue.

So just vote to outlaw antibiotics use in healthy livestock and make sure there is a rigorous inspection apparatus?

Farmers are few, people who get diseases are many. Shouldn't be too hard.

"The thoughtless person playing with penicillin treatment is morally responsible for the death of a man who succumbs to infection with a penicillin-resistant organism."

- Sir Alexander Fleming

It should be noted that Fleming discovered Pencillin and the statement is especially prescient coming from him. He spoke countless times around the world trying to raise awareness that antibiotic resistance would be inevitable when used improperly.

The nightmare scenario is medical science gets rolled back by a century as non-trivial infections return to being a death sentence.

OK and how do you locate and invoice all of these morally responsible individuals who have led to this resistance? It's hundreds of thousands of doctors. I doubt their malpractice insurance will cover this. And then aside from the unnecessary prescriptions, because the ignorant patient-consumer demanded it, is the ignorant patient-consumer who doesn't take the entire prescribed dosage which is itself the far bigger problem that lead to resistance. How are they punished and insured for their immorality?

I think you've mistaken moral for legal. We don't punish immorality except through social and cultural pressure, or to make it a legal issue, and then we aren't punishing morality so much as legality (even if rooted in morality).

Agro lobby is pretty powerful in the US. The people lobby - our dear senate, republican and democrat simply sells out.

Why does it seem like every damn thing we do for farmers is awful for others?

I know it's not, we reap the benefits in lower food prices, but does beef really need to be cheap enough we can eat it 7 days a week?

>I know it's not, we reap the benefits in lower food prices, but does beef really need to be cheap enough we can eat it 7 days a week?

No it is. The total cost to society has to include healthcare costs as well. Saying, 'This lowers our cost at the dinner table' is only looking at part of the equation.

Never mind that people don't eat dinner together which is a by product of having super cheap convenient packaged calories available. Eating as a family increases child development significantly, it's like the cheapest thing you can do to give kids a good start.

Never mind that we don't really need nearly as much corn as we produce. When the farm bill came out and started picking agricultural winners, we turned garbage farm land into prime producers of a crop that we don't need. Then we added tariffs to sugar imports, then we put corn into everything, providing a cheap source of calories and diabetes, heart disease, perhaps cancer (most of the links here are still from correlation and haven't been proven as causation). Corn moved from a side dish to being in everything you eat unless you are cooking all (most) of your own food.

We have the (possible) super bug issue from our meat sources.

It takes like 50 gallons of water to grow an avocado but we do that anyways because irrigation water is subsidized in many states even as we start to drain our reservoirs.

It takes 2 calories of fossil fuel to make one calorie of food. We do this because it's still cost effective because of subsidies.

The whole picture makes it look not quite as cheap, we've just pushed the cost into other categories to hide it.

> It takes 2 calories of fossil fuel to make one calorie of food. We do this because it's still cost effective because of subsidies.

I think "we do this because we can't eat fossil fuels no matter how many calories they provide, so trading total energy content for ability to serve as food is valuable, independent of subsidy" would be more accurate.

Partly, but we can grow food in a more efficient way. It's currently cost prohibitive because we use feed lots, and subsidies water and fuel for farming.

What about photosynthesis?

>Farmers are few, people who get diseases are many. Shouldn't be too hard.

"Concentrated benefits, dispersed costs." Farmers are highly organized and vigilant in defense of their subsidies and regulations, whereas sick people are not similarly organized and the policy connection to their condition isn't obvious. Concentrated benefits are what create special interests, which by their nature put their own interest ahead of the national interest.

I think you have an unrealistic view of what mother nature is like. Wild animals (i.e. not in feed lots) succumb to disease, including bacteria infections all the time. Even with free-range animals, you'd have a ton of livestock dying (and suffering needlessly) if you never allowed antibiotics to be used.

I think the idea is to ban their use for purely profit reasons (though that leaves a loophole where medical care is claimed when the intent is just to increase growth of the animals for profit).

Medical care of sick animals is a "purely profit reason".

Farmers do this for a number of reasons:

- Constantly feeding livestock antibiotics makes them grow bigger. The mechanism for why this happens is not understood (but who cares because bigger livestock means more money).

- It is costly to deal with an animal after it gets an infection rather than just being preventative.

- Farmers are scared about diseases sweeping through their herds and causing issues where they are forced to kill the whole herd (e.g. mad cow disease -- though antibiotics don't prevent prion diseases).

This is not the practice everywhere worldwide. The US is particularly bad when it comes to antibiotics in livestock.

It's a harmful practice and should be outlawed. Even if it means paying more for your food.

I would much rather pay 1% more for my food than 10% more for may healthcare. For many there will be no amount that can be paid to keep up with antibiotic resistant bacteria, it will kill people.

I am sure that farmer's would rather risk their livestock than risk their children or grandchildren.

I think the only way this practice can exist is when people do not understand or are coerced into doing it. Many of the largest farms just have people following rote instructions and not actually understanding what is happening.

Let's compare to an easier to understand industry, think about fast food. The people in the kitchen at a McDonald's don't need to know how to cook, they follow the instructions and put uncooked meat in a machine and food comes out of the machine. If that process killed kittens somehow the McDonalds worker would never know.

I suspect the near minimum wage workers manning livestock farms and farmers that might not have the benefit of a full education, simply don't or don't accept that antibiotic abuse creates a breeding ground for something will kill some of their children.

>I am sure that farmer's would rather risk their livestock than risk their children or grandchildren.

you're kidding right? sure economical impact today vs. theoretical risk to grand/children tomorrow - Nov 8 will show how many people and of what demographics what choice would make, and I'm somehow sure what choice the farmers would make :)

that should NOT be a smiley at the end

that is dialectical smile - for example, ignoring climate change by voting red the farmers from the mid-states are thus letting the climate change to proceed to the point where open-air farming in those states becomes impossible, and thus they are basically selecting themselves out...

I am not kidding. I am in one of those red states at the moment and most people doing the farming literally do not believe or accept anthropogenic global warming.

When the discussion is calm enough, they do largely agree that they wouldn't do anything harmful to their children or their farm's legacy. The just don't think global warming is real so their low mpg cars don't contribute to harming their farm.

Combine this with the fact that people defending a stance often become emotionally entrenched and likely they will continue to believe global warming is not real until they can no longer plant corn. Then once that emotionally devastates them, or some similarly life shattering cognitive dissonance destroying event occurs, they can take a look with fresh eyes.

EDIT - I know this is mostly about glbobal warming and the original discussion related to antibiotic resistance, but largely the resistance is from uneducated super-conservative people with a fundamental religion and a fundamental distrust of science. I really see these two problems as two sides of the same coin.

If I had to speculate I would say that they grow bigger since the animal requires to spend less energy in its immune system, resulting in a surplus of energy that is spent in growth.

I'm sure there are multiple theories, but so far as I know the they are just that.

And Democrats are powerless to prevent the GOP from "criminalizing science"?

How about having the mainstream media news talk about it, and then some kind of general vote on whether "ag-gag" laws should be repealed immediately?

You think the public might support the idea?

Of course. It would be simple to get it repealed with massive public support and outrage. So why don't they do it?

Might it be that shafting the general population is a bi-partisan effort after all, just like with SOPA / PIPA / CISPA / NDAA / TPP / TTIP and so on ad infinitum?

> And Democrats are powerless to prevent the GOP from "criminalizing science"?

Basically, yes.

> How about having the mainstream media news talk about it

The "mainstream media news" doesn't work for the Democratic Party (in fact, it mostly is owned by corporations that preferentially support the Republican Party, though people tend to get confused by studies showing that workers in much of the media lean Democratic, as if firms were directed by workers rather than owners.)

Should someone be allowed to sneak into a company's building, or pretend to be an honest employee, just to investigate potential wrongdoing? That's the government's job, not private activists'.

If someone wants to walk into your private property and research your operations, you should have the right to tell them to beat feet. If there is a legitimate public interest then the government should create an inspection scheme; there probably should be one but that's a separate debate. But allowing guerilla espionage by activist groups is not an acceptable alternative.

There is legitimate public interest as these sites are key components of the food production system. The point that the OP was intentionally making is that the government (via GOP leadership, apparently) has specifically excused itself from creating such an inspection scheme and done so in a way that seems comprehensive enough to understand the alternative paths "guerilla ... activist" scientists could even potentially report on such a matter.

That the government is failing to investigate something cannot be a license to trespassing or lying your way to a private investigation. If you want government action on something, then you have to win in the political process. Taking matters into your own hands and assuming the powers reserved for the government is not acceptable.

===================

Replying to swashek below since I'm rate-limited: what are you talking about "thought crime"? None of the laws here concern thought or the freedom to publish your thoughts. They ban conducting suriptitious investigations on farms, which necessarily involves either trespassing or deceit in gaining access (e.g. an activist getting himself hired as an employee)

Where do you see ANYthing about trespassing, and how do you interpret ANYthing that either I or the OP stated as condoning it? It was simply stated that trespassing is clearly defined as illegal. Lobbyists have cornered winning in the political process so all we have is our voice, which it sounds like you're trying to take away.

Even as a country of laws (which I support), you still have to be able to admit that said laws are absurd when they are, in fact, absurd. This goes beyond absurd and endangers the populace. You seem more interested in ensuring that we definitively prosecute thought crimes rather than work to change the system which, at face value, appears to place the government as accessories to the wrongful deaths of many of its citizens (keeping focus on this particular topic). As such, doesn't OP have the right to criticize and suspect the government, especially when the government is ostensibly blockading one of those "inalienable rights" of "life ..."

Keep shilling, though!

This comment was fine-ish up until that last line. Please edit it away.

I don't think that the person you're replying to is suggesting that the law should remain as-is. Rather, he's suggesting that the law should be modified via the established political processes for doing so. I'm not sure where you're getting the "thought crime" thing -- even if he supported the ag-gag laws, it wouldn't be thought crime to say so, and he wouldn't be accusing others of thought crime by saying so. This is simply called a "disagreement". It doesn't need to be dramatized.

Of course OP has a right to criticize and suspect the government. Who said he didn't? That doesn't mean OP has the right to disregard property boundaries or to enter a private premises under false pretenses, even if the stated intent is to "prove antibiotics in farm animals are causing human superbugs".

If one believes that the local trespassing laws should be modified to accommodate persons acting in this particular public interest, he should contact his local representatives, or, alternately, run against them and lead the charge himself.

It is probably much easier to convince someone in one of the several government bureaucracies to open an investigation than to get a special exception to trespassing laws codified.

>Should someone be allowed to sneak into a company's building, or pretend to be an honest employee, just to investigate potential wrongdoing? That's the government's job, not private activists'.

It was legal for the entire history of the Republic, albeit it was also grounds for civil litigation.

The GOP decided to criminalize it.

I sort of agree with you, but the laws overstep what I consider acceptable.

I'm fine with an operation banning employees from filming, for example, and employees getting fired for doing so, or for arresting people for trespassing.

The laws referenced by the OP go further, though, to criminalize recordings that were taken by individuals who were allowed on the property by the owner, and who were documenting what happened. In my opinion, owners have the right to fire employees who violate their policies, and to sue former and current employees for libel, but not to sue former and current employees for distributing recordings of things that actually occurred, when there's no reasonable expectation of privacy (which almost by definition is impossible in a workplace, except for maybe things like medical settings).

I agree with you, though, that if there's a public health interest, the government should create laws regarding that, or at least give authority to DPHs to do that.

This is my thinking as well. It means your hothead animal rights person can't assault your staff, tresspass, visit with fake credentials, etc for a political agenda. Property rights do matter, regardless of the exceptions the left keeps trying to give itself against the non-left.

If this is really a public rights issue and lets assume the entirely of the GOP has been paid off, from POTUS to dog catcher, then where is the Democratic response? Oh right, it doesn't exist, because this is a non-issue outside of extremist views. Its trivial for any political group to start a case and get it to SCOTUS if they believe any of this is unconstitutional. Its trivial for law enforcement to get warrants against these farms if they're violating the law.

I do understand the controversy here, but I think in the end, whistleblowing will always come with some risk. Its a little naive to think it doesn't. I think most people are okay with that because casual whistlblowing becomes office politics, meaningless outrage politics, and endless bikeshedding. There should be a high threshold for exemption to the laws that guarantee our freedom and rights.

> Should someone be allowed to sneak into a company's building, or pretend to be an honest employee, just to investigate potential wrongdoing? That's the government's job, not private activists'.

So Upton Sinclair was wrong to go undercover to gather material for his book The Jungle?

In case you're not aware, until the 80's, American law practically encouraged a level of industrial espionage, because it discouraged reliance on trade secrecy and therefore encouraged the dissemination of knowledge. And yes, because it enabled undercover investigations of wrong doing, both the illegal and what ought-to-be illegal.

> If someone wants to walk into your private property and research your operations, you should have the right to tell them to beat feet.

To the extent that there is a valid right here, how is regular, generally-applicable civil and criminal trespassing law an insufficient vindication of the valid rights at issue so as to require special additional "ag-gag" laws providing additional privileges to a particular industry?

> If there is a legitimate public interest then the government should create an inspection scheme The problem is that the public doesn't always know any better or know what is going on without the undercover folks investigating and making a big deal about it. It would be different if we could trust policy makers to investigate some of the stuff or listen to the science, but at this point (at least in the US), that's not happening.

>That's the government's job, not private activists Sure, maybe it is the government's job technically. Unfortunately, that doesn't always work. In addition to the above, many governement oversight programs are underfunded or have had their power legistlated away. On top of all that, companies aren't always upfront with letting an inspector see the normal daily operations.

Ancedotes I worked as a CNA in a nursing home. They were commonly understaffed. This is fairly common with nursing homes in the state I was in. There was a state agency that checked such things, but it seemed the nursing homes always had a notice when they were going to visit. Suddenly, they had a lot of manditory and voluntary overtime available and stuck to the rules. If the visits were sporadic, more often, and they checked things like logs and historic staffing levels, I'm guessing this would change. I think the only way to get this improved would be for enough private activists to gather evidence from many different places and get state laws changed after making a public outcry.

Ancedote 2 I worked in a food factory for a day or two. Now, they were horrible employers for various reasons, but the facility was clean and there was a lot of focus on meeting food prep safety guidelines. In fact, there were USDA employees assigned to that factory, and they could not run without it. Actual oversight. But food factories might not have been like this had it not been for private activists, and it still isn't perfect. One still hears horror stories in small towns with a meat processing plant, for example, but I have no clue if they are true or not.

"That's the government's job, not private activists'."

Taking a broad view, I disagree. Everything the government is permitted to do is (or at least should be) ultimately by consent of the governed. Anything that is the government's job is only their job because the governed delegated it to them; it is the job of the governed first, delegated to the government. It is private activists' job; the government has simply been tasked with it.

I believe the governed have a moral duty to take back any such job when the government proves unable to properly execute their duties.

The line of "unable to properly execute" is, unfortunately, enormously open to interpretation. Morality isn't easy.

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