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Comment by bbrian | Hacker News Reader

Don't eat meat.

I'd suggest instead: if you're going to eat meat, be picky about its provenance. Specifically, insist on grass-fed beef (as the corn-based diet of factory cattle is a major contributor to sick cows and the "need" for antibiotics). Voting with your wallet -- thus providing signal to the marketplace that how meat is sourced matters -- is more effective than opting out altogether. Not an option for everyone, but many omnivores could take this approach. Combined with options like "impossible burger" we might be on the verge of a tipping point towards a large and positive change.

Opting out altogether is the most powerful form of voting with your wallet.

Not necessarily. By opting out, there's no signal at all that it matters how the meat is sourced.

How does the factory farmer know whether:

A) I buy my meat at the farmer's market.

B) I buy tempeh instead of meat.

It's not about one factory farmer being connected so directly to your specific choices, it's more like: restauranteers and grocers increasingly notice customers insisting on local, humanely raised, grass-fed beef, and thus they reduce their factory-meat order size and quantity. Factory farmer asks why, maybe gets an answer and thinks about improving conditions, or maybe doesn't in which case it's still a net win as the market share shifts in favor of the "good guys".

Useless advice.

I could offer something just as useless: "don't eat plants".

Meat and plants can both be infected with bacteria. And both require freezing and refrigeration to avoid spoiling.

The meat industry is a major reason for antibiotic resistant bacteria.

A major reason, but not the only major reason, and not the largest among major reasons.

Doctors constantly prescribing antibiotics for literally anything (even viruses, which would require an antiviral not an antibiotic), and then patients not taking all of their pills (giving you a double whammy of dumb) is just as bad, or even worse, than meat.

Also, the beef industry in the US has stopped the practice of subtherapeutic antibiotics used for growth. Antibiotics can only be given to beef strictly by on-label usage, thus closing one of the possible routes.

Pro-vegan propaganda does not belong on HN.

"Antibiotics can only be given to beef strictly by on-label usage"

That's wonderful news, if I understood it correctly. Did you mean that they completely stopped giving antibiotics to cattle unless and until said cattle is sick? Is that a regulation? Does it apply to chicken as well? Any links?

Yes, and they must complete the dosing regiment. I can't find a good link on it, but the regulation is part of the larger 2015 FDA Veterinary Feed Directive.

I'm not sure if it applies to chicken, however Perdue has been trying to save its damaged brand by removing antibiotics also used for humans entirely (about a decade ago), and semi-recently announced that only half of their chicken used any antibiotics at all and none used off-label; they also have antibiotic free sub-brands.

This is notable because Perdue is the third largest chicken product company, after Tyson (Tyson, Jimmy Dean, Hillshire Farm, Sara Lee, Ballpark, Wright's), and JBS (Pilgrim's, Swift, Plumrose), although both Tyson and JBS produce twice (each) as much chicken as Perdue does (giving Perdue 1/5th of the market).

Seems to me like it was more of a poorly worded argument rather than "propaganda".

Anyway, what's interesting to me is that doctors are in an impossible position. They want to make their patients happy, not just healthy. And patients equate antibiotics with getting better, thus doctors prescribe antibiotics.

Suggestion: for colds, write a prescribe for an infusion of Camellia sinensis in heated DHMO, to be taken orally once a day with bovine mammary secretions. Call it a “traditional Chinese herbal remedy” if anyone asks.

Caffeine reduces immune response:

Caffeine, like other xanthines, also acts as a phosphodiesterase inhibitor.[141] As a competitive nonselective phosphodiesterase inhibitor,[142] caffeine raises intracellular cAMP, activates protein kinase A, inhibits TNF-alpha[143][144] and leukotriene[145] synthesis, and reduces inflammation and innate immunity.[145] Caffeine also affects the cholinergic system where it inhibits the enzyme acetylcholinesterase.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeine

Huh. I’d never have guessed that, given its use in (non-prescription) cold-and-flu medicine.

It really shouldn't be to difficult to overcome. In the UK if you go in with an infection, you are quite likely to be told 'its probably viral, so there is no point prescribing antibiotics'

It seems a bit less cut and dry, and still unsolved.

> is just as bad, or even worse, than meat.

"By 2011, a total of 13.6 million kg (30 million lb) of antimicrobials were sold for use in food-producing animals in the United States,[53] which represented 80% of all antibiotics sold or distributed in the United States"

> Antibiotics can only be given to beef strictly by on-label usage, thus closing one of the possible routes.

"The FDA has asked drug companies to voluntarily edit its labels to exclude growth promotion as an indication for antibiotic usage."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibiotic_use_in_livestock

Even if the US comes down hard if there is are countries that still allows it, the risk remains. Resistance doesn't care about borders.

> Pro-vegan propaganda does not belong on HN.

Sure. But it seems an important issue and the facts seem to indicate it's not solved yet.

The rules changed in 2015 so references from 2011 are not worth considering.

Because the virus world was put on notice at that time and changed their ways?

A lot of damage was already done.

> the virus world

The bacterial one. Virus infections are (almost?) never treated with antibiotics.

Quote 1 describes the scale of the problem. Quote 2 shows why it's not fixed yet.

Just like the healthcare industry, evidence for that is actually quite overwhelming in contrast to agricultural use effects [0]

So should we shut down all hospitals and never visit the doctor again?

[0] https://www.niaid.nih.gov/research/antimicrobial-resistance-...

And a major reason for affordable meat for the billions of people.

Yes. Also:

The agriculture industry is a major reason why pesticides, herbicides, destructive monocrops cultures and such, are done. They are responsible for the destruction of the Amazon by planting soyabean monocultures, because of the rich soil.

Both are as horrible as each other.

Both can be done quite sustainably. Problem is that there's not money in doing so, because greed runs the show.

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