Credits to the EU for regulation this aggressively.. I even think the US is doing something: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibiotic_use_in_livestock
As with climate change, this is probably going to hit emerging economies the hardest.. due to lack of regulation and less ability to deal with cost of workarounds.
Literally everyone is doing something about it in animal care (in the EU we lost availability of many specialties, or some are now usable only after antibiograms), yet it doesn't get better because MDs don't do shit. And what can they do after all, people can just go and find another practitioner. I just hope that with such reasoning you're ready to have your animal protein have its price tripled then or see your dog die of pneumonia, because that's what we're coming to.
Or maybe everyone needs to brace themselves and endure having a cold for 2 more days and not resort to antibiotics for every little thing, or we will soon leave our YOPI (young, old, pregnant, immunosuppressed) to dying with no available care. By our current state of overpopulation, it's not a big deal after all.
> Or maybe everyone needs to brace themselves and endure having a cold for 2 more days and not resort to antibiotics for every little thing
The reduction in antibiotic use here by doctors is also pretty noticable. I certainly don't get antibiotics prescribed for every little thing. Also, it's important to remember that while doctors might seem like they throw antibiotics at every patient, they typically prescribe the same very narrow antibiotics for everyone and use broad spectrum ones more restrictively (which is a good thing). It would be terrible if people could buy broad spectrum antibiotics over the counter.
>our ban on antibiotics for growth
Which were the only approved use of antibiotics in animals in your country without a doubt.
>I certainly don't get antibiotics prescribed for every little thing
Yeah me neither yet the spectacular decrease we should see is not there yet. Maybe there are other, more exigent patients then ?!
>they typically prescribe the same very narrow antibiotics for everyone and use broad spectrum ones more restrictively (which is a good thing). It would be terrible if people could buy broad spectrum antibiotics over the counter.
Well luckily some are only available in hospitals or such. But when I hear war stories from a veterinarian friend who switched to human medicine and sees lastest quinolones used systematically no matter the health status of the person for benign procedures, we just facepalm. They don't want to take the 5% risk that someone will need aftercare I guess. But MRSA and nosocomial infections are the real, growing threat...
You mean countries had (or has) laws that prohibited antibiotics for its proper use (to treat infection) but allowed antibiotics in livestock for growth stimulation? Which countries were that? And what would be the reasoning behind that?
As I understood it, the "bad" countries allow antibiotics for both purposes, whereas the "good" countries started restricting antibiotics for growth, and eventually banned it completely. Have I completely misunderstood you mean?
(Growth is still systematically stimulated through hormones injections in cattle at least in the Canada/US, and this is completely banned in the EU, maybe there's some mix up there ?)
> eventually banned it completely
No, luckily it's not completely banned anywhere I know of, and I hardly see this happening tbh. Even in organic productions and such its a number of treatments (or quantity per animal) limit per year. It is not banned and breeding animals would be hardly sustainable if it were.
Of course, the elephant in the room is the use in China/India/Brazil. I wonder how close we are to those countries adopting EU/US style regulation. Basically, how do we tell China/India/Brazil that they will simply have to accept protein prices that are much higher?
80% of the antibiotics used in the US are given to animals, not people:
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/09/are-antibiotics-turni...
Yes, absolutely. In fact higher meat prices probably wouldn't be a bad thing :)
On topic: maybe I was a bit extreme, what I meant was that if we limit agriculture usage of antibiotics, then we can hopefully avoid the kind of dystopian rationing for humans that the article talks about.
I'm certainly willing to see higher meat prices before we ration antibiotics away from humans who critically need it. (not talking about a cold that would go away on it's own)
So, yes, things were hardned few years ago.
When I was in middle school I had fallen very ill. I was sick for over 30 days. I was also low income and the process of going to the doctor made things worse. I could hardly move or swallow. I was not eating and loads of green stuff. Chills and fever over and over. I had taken everything the local doctors had prescribed. Nothing was working. I was not getting better.
My band teacher at the time was very concerned. I had missed over a month of school. So he made trip to visit family in Mexico. He smuggled back a big bottle of amoxicillin. Mother crushed them into honey and after only two doses and one night I was already improving. I was able sit up and eat and things progressed on until I was healthy again. If it were not for my band teacher I am sure I would have died.
Thank you Mr. Garcia.
It is a real shame that people abuse these powerful tools. That we allow cooperate interest trump that of humanity's.
A sustained low-level dose of antibiotic is proven to foster antibiotic resistance.
Sorry, but your comment is completely wrong.
First of all, that's not true; there's substantial overlap between agricultural and human use, for example the Bacitracin we use in the U.S. to promote growth in livestock, and the colistin now flooding Chinese agriculture.
Second, it wouldn't matter even if you were right; bacteria acquire resistance to classes of related antibiotics. So, for example, when bacteria become resistant to the fluoroquinolones that we regularly put in poultry feed in the U.S., those bacteria will likely be immune to Cipro when they infect you.