Randi Rhodes Forums

With no notice other than a holiday-eve posting in the Federal Register, the US Food and Drug Administration has reneged on its long-stated intention to compel large-scale agriculture to curb over-use of agricultural antibiotics, which it had planned to do by reversing its approval for putting penicillin and tetracyclines in feed.

How long-stated? The FDA first announced its intention to withdraw those approvals in 1977.

From the official posting:

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA or the Agency) is withdrawing two 1977 notices of opportunity for a hearing (NOOH), which proposed to withdraw certain approved uses of penicillin and tetracyclines intended for use in feeds for food-producing animals based in part on microbial food safety concerns.1 … (1FDA’s approval to withdraw the approved uses of the drugs was based on three statutory grounds: (1) The drugs are not shown to be safe (2) lack of substantial evidence of effectiveness and (3) failure to submit required reports

There is a lot of background to this, but here is the takeaway: For 34 years, the FDA has been contending that administering small doses of antibiotics to healthy animals is an inappropriate use of increasingly scarce drugs — a position in which it is supported by organizations as mainstream as the American Medical Association. With this withdrawal, it backs away from the actions it took to support that assertion — which may indicate there will be no further government action on the issue until after the 2012 election.


http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/ ... tibiotics/




FDA Documents Show Agency Once Strongly Opposed Farm Antibiotic Overuse



What those original documents make clear is that the FDA has never had any uncertainty about the risks posed by subtherapeutic and prophylactic use of antibiotics in large-scale agriculture. It has only lacked the power, funding or will to push back against sustained opposition from industry and from Congress (which you can see in this timeline).

Because they date from 1977, the original notices aren’t accessible through the Federal Register search engine. They were retrieved by the Natural Resources Defense Council, which has been pressing a lawsuit against the FDA for not pursuing the withdrawal of approvals. For easy accessibility, I’ve placed pdfs of them on Scribd: the penicillin NOOH here and the tetracyclines one here.


more

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/ ... c-overuse/

At Wired they posted a link to the official FDA posting, but apparently they didn't read it. The articles lead in was shrill and bull shitty.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Food and Drug Administration

[Docket Nos. FDA-1977-N-0019 (formerly 1977N-0230), FDA-1977-N-0014
(formerly 977N-0231), FDA-1977-N-0022 (formerly 1977N-0316), and FDA-
1977-N-0224 (formerly 1977N-0317)]


Withdrawal of Notices of Opportunity for a Hearing; Penicillin
and Tetracycline Used in Animal Feed

AGENCY: Food and Drug Administration, HHS.

ACTION: Notice.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

SUMMARY: The Food and Drug Administration (FDA or the Agency) is
withdrawing two 1977 notices of opportunity for a hearing (NOOH), which
proposed to withdraw certain approved uses of penicillin and
tetracyclines intended for use in feeds for food-producing animals
based in part on microbial food safety concerns.\1\ (Refs. 1 and 2) FDA
is taking this action, and closing the corresponding dockets, because:
FDA is engaging in other ongoing regulatory strategies developed since
the publication of the 1977 NOOHs with respect to addressing microbial
food safety issues; FDA would update the NOOHs to reflect current data,
information, and policies if, in the future, it decides to move forward
with withdrawal of the approved uses of the new animal drugs described
in the NOOHs; and FDA would need to prioritize any withdrawal
proceedings (for example, take into account which withdrawal(s) would
likely have the most significant impact on the public health) if, in
the future, it decides to seek withdrawal of the approved uses of any
new animal drug or class of drugs. FDA is also withdrawing the
companion proposed rules to these NOOHs. (Refs. 3 and 4)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

I like organic food, but I've also raised chickens, and if some antibiotics are not in the food when they are chicks, it often leads to the whole batch of chicks dying from disease from the floor and dirt around the chicken house.

About the History of tetracycline antibiotics:

Wiki says:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetracycline_antibiotics



But unlike the discovered in 1940 by Dr. Benjamin Duggar story, tetracycline has been in our natural environment since the time of the building of the Egyptian pyramids. It's been discovered in the bones of mummy's buried there.

Abstract: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajpa.1330800202/abstract



Some people say tetracycline producing bacteria called Streptomyces naturally occurs in the soil there. And the tetracycline was produced through their beer making process:http://www.medicaldiscoverynews.com/shows/238_infectionBeer.html



Since the initial discovery of in the 1980's tetracycline in Nubia and Ancient Egypt has been confirmed by several researchers, there are a lot of science journals documenting this. The more they look for Streptomyces naturally occurs in the soil in the natural environment, the more they seem to be finding tetracycline as a natural by product of fermentation of the grains.

Maybe some rethinking about this issue is in order. Medical doctors have changed their minds about a lot of things after being so sure they were right the first time. Maybe the theory about the general usefulness of the antibiotic being reduced with bacterial resistance caused by over use of the drug is such a theory due to be change with new evidence coming to light. The new evidence being that the drug is common as dirt, and old as the Egyptian pyramids.

That antibiotics were used 3000 years ago doesn't disprove the theory. It might suggest the bacteria etc. we have today have already changed genetically in response.

The theoretical mechanism remains. Use an antibiotic to kill 10,000 bacteria, you'll kill 9999. But due to random mutation, that 1 bacterium has resistance to it. Soon that 1 bacterium replicates, and you over time wind up with thousands of resistant bacteria. In fact, since all non-resistant bacteria are dying off, simple Darwinism means you eventually wind up with all resistant bacteria.

The overuse of antibiotics in U.S. and other animal agriculture is unnecessary. Many farmers give their animals such antibiotics in the absence of actual infections, as a kind of preventative. In other cases, it's because something else they're doing (like giving them bovine growth hormone, or penning them too tightly in close pens) makes them more prone to infection. It would be better if they tried other animal husbandry techniques (call them "organic" if you prefer, I would just say "sound") rather than overusing antibiotics.

Antibiotic use by Egyptians, especially given the fact that they didn't do it in as widespread a fashion in either agriculture or medicine, doesn't seem to change this.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/0 ... 70385.html

A hospital is a place of healing, but a new small study shows that drug-resistant bacteria may be lurking in some hospital rooms.

Researchers from the University of Maryland School of Medicine found Acinetobacter baumannii, a drug-resistant bacteria known as MDR-AB, in 48 percent of hospital rooms tested in their study.

"For patients with MDR-AB, the surrounding environment is frequently contaminated, even among patients with a remote history of MDR-AB," researchers wrote in the American Journal of Infection Control study. "Surfaces often touched by health care workers during routine patient care are commonly contaminated and may be a source of nosocomial spread."

Researchers tested surfaces in 50 hospital rooms between October 2008 and January 2009 for MDR-AB, MSNBC reported.

They found that 20 percent of supply carts, 16 percent of floors, 14 percent of infusion pumps and 11.4 percent of ventilator touch pads were contaminated with the bacteria, according to the study.

The study demonstrates that seemingly clean surfaces could actually be dirty, infection control expert Russell Olmsted, who wasn't involved in the study, told MSNBC.

MSNBC explains:

Acinetobacter baumannii poses a particular problem because it's a hardy strain that can survive for days, even months on inanimate surfaces, Olmsted said. Most hospital cleaners can disarm it, but crews must be careful to reach every spot -- especially those in high-traffic areas.

Acinetobacter baumannii can lead to pneumonia and bacteremia, as well as urinary tract infections, secondary meningitis and other kinds of infections, according to Medscape. Extremely ill people are the most likely to be infected with the bacteria, especially if their immune systems are depressed or they've suffered a major trauma or burn.

Recently, a study from University of Iowa showed that hospital curtains can harbor drug-resistant bacteria. In that study, 26 percent of curtain samples had MRSA, and 44 percent of them had the bacteria Enterococcus.

[snip][end]

Drug-resistant bacteria lurking in hospitals - who of course strive for antiseptic conditions but because of drug-resistant strains sometimes fail - are the major cause of iatrogenic deaths and illness in hospitals.

It's a threefold problem. The combo of overuse in medicine, overuse in agriculture, and now consumer products for the home with antibiotics being oversold and overused, is the combo that's creating the problem.

The Egyptians didn't have Madison Avenue marketing antibiotic soaps and lotions to every Egyptian home.

Biology is fascinating. If I could have a do over, I'd be some kind of life scientist rather than a wrench.

Seeker, try thinking about how your first paragraph relates to your second? If the bacteria we have today has already changed genetically in response. Wouldn't that suggest by the theory mechanism that the simple Darwinism has already taken place, meaning we already have all resistant bacteria now.

Maybe the theoretical mechanism remains, but it is flawed.?.



I didn't give unnecessary antibiotics to my chickens that first time. I was finishing college at Colorado State University (aggies), and I rented a farm house several miles east of Ft Collins. Along with the farm house I also got the old farm chicken house.

I was into organic food and I though why not I'll raise some organic chickens. I grew up on a farm and I certainly knew how to raise non organic chickens. I sure thought the use of antibiotics when the chickens weren't sick, putting it into the feed and water was not being organic, and it was obviously unnecessary too.

So I ordered 60 chicks, and when they arrived I went to town and picked them up. I also bought the other items I would need, but antibiotic supplement for water and starter feed was so not necessary. When I was getting the feed loaded up the feed store clerk noticed I hadn't bought the chick starter antibiotic supplement.

Oh no I said! Antibiotics in the absence of actual infection, as a kind of preventative, was not necessary.

For about two weeks they sure were cute those baby chicks. Then in about the space of a week 57 of them died. I started the chicks on antibiotics just as soon as I noticed that they were sick, but it was too late, I couldn't save them.

It was also pretty embarrassing buying the antibiotic supplement from the same clerk who had noticed I hadn't bought it before.

I withheld necessary medical care from my baby chicks when I knew better, and I did it so I could be more fashionable, earthy, and organic.

I had been taught perfectly well what I needed to do to raise chicken while I was growing up, but I went to college and after doing so, I was book educated, refined, I knew better.

I ignored just about the first lesson I had been taught about raising chickens. Taught to me by someone who actually raised chickens.

Put antibiotics in the dammed water and feed when they're chicks for the first two weeks when they're getting started!



Seeker when a professors has gone to talking about what farmers are doing wrong in a paper or study, and is saying what farmers should do instead. I've seen a family of actual farmers setting around a table where someone was reading all about it from one of the farm journals, and mentioning to the others what those city slicker professors were saying they were all doing wrong now, and what they should do about it instead.

Would you like to know what the some of the typical comments regular farmers at a table at home might think to make after hearing about some issue in a farm journal or news paper, and after having weighed it with what they happen to know, and after having decided the issue was mostly that professor at the collage was ignorant?

I could also mention what a batch of farmers might do, in addition to making the usual typical comments, if they were not at a table, but were outside standing on dirt when such a conversation occurred.

Sure, resistant to things that existed in the past, not necessarily to things that exist today.



Darwinian evolution seems to be holding up. Unless you agree with the creationists. Or the Lamarckists?

Question. You do agree that there are more drug resistant bacteria today than 50 years ago, yes?

Why do you think that is? Just random chance? Could it have something to do with overuse of antibiotics?



And yet, some of those nutty, granola-chewing organic types seem to be having more success than you, YS, in keeping their chicks alive.

I'm not a farmer, I'm one of those city slicker types, but what you just told me is interesting.

These guys seem to be doing something right?
http://products.mercola.com/organic-chicken/

I mean, they couldn't be selling chickens if they were all dying before they were ready to be processed - now could they?

Not to insult you, but I'm just curious. They seem to know how to raise a chicken without antibiotics. What are they doing right that you did wrong? I guess that means it's possible. No?

Anyway, BTW, those city slicker types over at the FDA still caution against overuse of antibiotics.

http://www.fda.gov/AnimalVeterinary/Gui ... 216939.htm

Is using medically important antimicrobial drugs to increase production in food-producing animals a judicious use?

No. FDA thinks that using medically important antimicrobial drugs to increase production in food-producing animals is not a judicious use.

[snip][end]

But hey, Sam, they're city slickers, just doing their studies and shuffling their slide rules, I bet they've never been near a farm animal. What the hell do they know?

Bill a farmer is a life scientist and a wrench. I've read your posts about your gardening, the soil perpetration and everything else. I happen to think you're a pretty darned good life scientist, and a wrench.

Damn city slickers at CDC. Shoveling the same horse manure.

http://www.cdc.gov/washington/testimony ... 100714.htm

CDC continues to take steps to minimize inappropriate use of antibiotics in humans, and today’s hearing is an important opportunity to highlight the need for parallel steps to minimize inappropriate antibiotic use in animals.

As a nation, we must do more to respond to this growing problem. CDC supports FDA’s approach, as described in recent guidance, that the use of antimicrobials should be limited to protecting human and animal health. Purposes other than the protection of animal or human health should not be considered judicious use.

[snip][end]

Ooops. Didn't look closely enough at the site hosting those organic, free-range chickens.

Joseph Mercola is a luminary at Quackwatch. Let me say right off the bat that I just made a mistake I condemn others for, and didn't check that it was Mercola selling these chickens.

Still, there are more credible vendors who raise and sell such chickens.

Like this Three Musketeer.
http://www.dartagnan.com/51336/565660/C ... 7QodORzqnQ

Just wanted to correct my own mistake.

More city slickers!

http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... ig-problem

For more than 50 years microbiologists have warned against using antibiotics to fatten up farm animals. The practice, they argue, threatens human health by turning farms into breeding grounds of drug-resistant bacteria. Farmers responded that restricting antibiotics in livestock would devastate the industry and significantly raise costs to consumers. We now have empirical data that should resolve this debate. Since 1995 Denmark has enforced progressively tighter rules on the use of antibiotics in the raising of pigs, poultry and other livestock. In the process, it has shown that it is possible to protect human health without hurting farmers.

Farmers in many countries use antibiotics in two key ways: (1) at full strength to treat animals that are sick and (2) in low doses to fatten meat-producing livestock or to prevent veterinary illnesses. (It is illegal in the U.S. to sell milk for human consumption from dairy cattle treated with antibiotics.) Although even the proper use of antibiotics can inadvertently lead to the spread of drug-resistant bacteria, the habit of using a low or subtherapeutic dose is a formula for disaster: the treatment provides just enough antibiotic to kill some but not all bacteria. The germs that survive are typically those that happen to bear genetic mutations for resisting the antibiotic. They then reproduce and exchange genes with other microbial resisters. Because bacteria are found literally everywhere, resistant strains produced in animals eventually find their way into people as well. You could not design a better system for guaranteeing the spread of antibiotic resistance.

The data from multiple studies over the years support the conclusion that low doses of antibiotics in animals increase the number of drug-resistant microbes in both animals and people. As Joshua M. Sharfstein, a principal deputy commissioner at the Food and Drug Administration, told a U.S. congressional subcommittee last summer, “You actually can trace the specific bacteria around and ... find that the resistant strains in humans match the resistant strains in the animals.” And this science is what led Denmark to stop subtherapeutic dosing of chickens, pigs and other farm animals.

Although the transition unfolded smoothly in the poultry industry, the average weight of pigs fell in the first year. But after Danish farmers started leaving sows and piglets together a few weeks longer to bolster the littermates’ immune systems naturally, the animals’ weights jumped back up, and the number of pigs per litter increased as well. The lesson is that improving animal husbandry—making sure that pens, stalls and cages are properly cleaned and giving animals more room or time to mature—offsets the initial negative impact of limiting antibiotic use. Today Danish industry reports that productivity is higher than before. Meanwhile reports of antibiotic resistance in Danish people are mixed, which shows—as if we needed reminding—that there are no quick fixes.

Lest anyone argue that Denmark is too small to offer a reasonable parallel to the U.S., consider that it is the world’s largest exporter of pork. Like U.S. farmers, Danes raise pigs on an intensive, industrial scale. If they can figure out how to limit antibiotic use while actually increasing agricultural productivity, then so can Americans.

The American Medical Association, the Infectious Diseases Society of America, the American Public Health Association, a previous FDA commissioner and many others have advised the U.S. to follow suit. Last year the FDA published new guidelines calling for “judicious use” of antibiotics. Yet it ultimately left the decision on exactly when and where to use antibiotics up to individual farmers. That laissez-faire standard is not good enough, particularly when the health of the rest of the population is at stake.

Of course, the way veterinary antibiotics are used is not the only cause of human drug-resistant infections. Careless use of the drugs in people also contributes to the problem. But agricultural use is still a major contributing factor. Every day that passes brings new evidence that we are in danger of losing effective antibiotic protection against many of the most dangerous bacteria that cause human illness [see “The Enemy Within,” by Maryn McKenna=]. The technical issues are solvable. Denmark’s example proves that it is possible to cut antibiotic use on farms without triggering financial disaster. In fact, it might provide a competitive advantage. Stronger measures to deprive drug-resistant bacteria of their agricultural breeding grounds simply make scientific, economic and common sense.

[snip][end]

But Sam, what do those Danes know? I bet the ones claiming to be farmers are really city slickers, too.

I know, I should stop serial posting to this thread like a a mad spammer.

Truth is, this is another one of these issues that I've skimmed over the years, and never really followed all this closely.

But I'm very interested in all this. I think this Denmark Experiment is really fascinating, and may point to the heart of the problem.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/02/ ... 5054.shtml

(CBS) They call it the "Danish Experiment" - a source of pride for the country's 17,000 farmers. CBS Evening News Anchor Katie Couric reports how unlike industrial farms in the U.S., which use antibiotics to promote growth and prevent disease, farmers in Denmark use antibiotics sparingly, only when animals are sick.

The experiment to stop widespread use of antibiotics was launched 12 years ago, when European studies showed a link between animals who were consuming antibiotic feed everyday and people developing antibiotic resistant infections from handling or eating that meat.

"We don't want to use more medicine than needed, and a lot of the medicine that is given is not needed," said Soren Helmer. Helmer is a second-generation pig farmer whose sows produce more than 30,000 pigs a year. When the ban started, he and his father thought the industry would suffer.

"We thought we could not produce pigs as efficient as we did before," Helmer said. "But that was proven wrong."

Since the ban, the Danish pork industry has grown by 43 percent - making it one of the top exporters of pork in the world. All of Europe followed suit in 2006. But the American Pork Industry doesn't want to.

"What we've seen in Denmark and other countries is that they actually have had some increases in cost of what it takes to produce a pig," said Liz Wagstrom, a veterinarian with the National Pork Board.

"So it's not that unqualified a success. If we did the same thing in the United States, we would likely see small producers pushed out of business, we'd have more sick and dying pigs, and none of that would result in a benefit to the U.S. consumer."

Without growth-promoting antibiotics, it only costs $5 more for every 100 pounds of pork brought to market in this country.

Animal Antibiotics a Threat?

That's a small price for public health, says Dr. Ellen Silbergeld,who has been studying the antibiotic resistance link between livestock and people for the past decade.

"I think the Danish and European experience indicate that there will be real and measurable public health benefits," she said. "There'll be improvements in food safety and actually in the prevalence of drug resistant infections in people."

Pew Campaign on Human Health and Industrial Farming

According to one study, when different countries introduced certain antibiotics on farms, a surge occurred in people contracting antibiotic resistant intestinal infections one to two years later. One infection, Campylobacter, increased 20 percent in Denmark and 70 percent in Spain.

After the ban, a Danish study confirmed that removing antibiotics from farms drastically reduced antibiotic-resistant bacteria in animals and food.

Danish scientists believe if the U.S. doesn't stop pumping its farm animals with antibiotics, drug-resistant diseases in people will only spread.

"It's not going to be a time bomb that goes off like this," said Dr. Frank Aarestrup, of the Danish Food Institute at the University of Denmark. "It's something that's slowly getting more and more complicated, more difficult for us to actually treat infections.

Rep. Slaughter's "Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act"

Some American food producers agree.

"It's just gone too far," said Stephen McDonnell, CEO Applegate Farms.

"What most bothers you about the way industrial farmers in this country currently operate," Couric asked.

"[b]We use too many antibiotics[/b], we use too many growth promotants," McDonnell replied. "The singular focus is to create cheap meat. That's not always the best thing for the health of the Americans who buy it."

"We think with some subtle changes - giving them more space, feeding them a good diet, and not stressing them out by growing them too quickly - you don't even need to use antibiotics," McDonnell added.

McDonnell helps farmers like Duane Koch kick the habit.

"How long have you been raising turkeys, Duane, without using antibiotics," Couric asked.

"We started running without antibiotics roughly 14 years ago," Koch replied.

"Does it make you feel better doing it this way," Couric asked.

"Yeah," Koch said. "Because really, from using the antibiotics so long, a lot of them didn't work well any way anymore."

Today his 18 poultry farms scattered throughout Pennsylvania are more profitable than when he used antibiotics.

Koch says it costs very little to convert a farm to antibiotic-free. And it doesn't cost consumers much more either. People buying antibiotic free turkey thigh meat will spend around $1.40 versus $1.20 for conventionally raised birds.

Koch says higher-quality feed and improving living conditions, his birds are naturally healthier.

Couric asked, "What's the importance of giving them more space?"

"That's just our natural growth promotants," he said. "By giving them more space, we can get weights that are really close to what they're getting, you know, with the growth promotants."

Because farmers are raising livestock successfully without growth-promoting antibiotics - from Lebanon, Pennsylvania to outside Copenhagen - public health officials in this country say this is an idea whose time has come.

"We have identified here that we're talking about a public health issue, that the overuse of antibiotics on farms does pose a risk to human health," said Joshua Sharfstein of the FDA.

The FDA has for the first time come out against using certain antibiotics to promote growth in livestock.

And pending legislation in Congress would ban some types of antibiotics used to treat humans from being administered to healthy farm animals.

[snip][end]

Sorry, YS, this is just one issue where I think there's too much at stake for me to just nod and agree with you here. Even if I am a city slicker.

It looks like the only reason American farmers won't do what Danish farmers do is because it costs a little bit more to do. Another situation where profits and people collide.

Seeker what a lovely scare crow you've erected there with sweeping mention of Darwinian evolution. And it's stuffed so well and full with association to those creationists or lamarckists. That was positively inspired. Soon as you learn to plow and plant corn you'll be set.

You asked three questions in the first section. I will answer them by saying:

They have indeed found more more drug resistant bacteria today than they had 50 years ago. They have also found that antibiotic producing Streptomyces naturally occurs in the soil in the natural environment. They didn't find that 50 years ago either.

All of these things they have indeed found after they started looking for them.

The resistant bacteria found today may not have existed before today, or 50 years ago. I wouldn't be able to argue that new resistant bacteria has not been found, nor that what has been found didn't exist 50 years ago.

However I can argue that not having found them before looking for them is hardly proof to prove that they didn't exist before today, or 50 years ago. Finding out that antibiotics weren't something first discovered or invented a lab in the 20 century sure is a good example to drive this point home.

People generally don't find things until they start looking for them.



Another point to bring up is it seems there's a mixing of barnyards with hospitals. The resistant bacteria you've mention has been found in Hospitals, and the lab work showing that was probably done in a lab in a hospital. The persons drawing conclusions about what is reasonable use and what is not reasonable use of antibiotics are probably also in a hospital setting.

The two environments aren't all that similar as such to be drawing conclusions that what applies to one setting should necessarily apply to the other.

You asked, "Why do you think that is? Just random chance? Could it have something to do with overuse of antibiotics?"

I sure think it could be that Seeker, I don't doubt those finding in a hospital, but I also am open to the idea that it might be something else instead, or in addition with, that it might be something not found or completely understood yet.

I'll provide a contrasting example of one the factors that set apart the two settings, hospitals and barnyards, showing the difference and show that difference in a medical sense. In a hospital disinfectants are things like iodine and bleach and other cleaning chemicals as well. They're good for cleaning and disinfection hard smooth surfaces.

In a chicken house setting an old but reliable much used disinfectant is nicotine. You pour nicotine from a can onto the rough wood of the roosts where the chickens hang on when they're roosting, and spray some on the dirt floor as well after shoveling the chicken shit up with a scoop shovel. Nicotine is also organic too.

I'm not suggesting that it would be over use in any way, and I suppose they should continue to clean the hospital like they have been doing all along. But could it be that the use of hospital chemical cleaning agents are also killing 999999 of the bacteria, leaving one to survive and pass on the resistance to the strain.

It might be that it's both overuse of antibiotics and disinfectant use as well.




"And yet, some of those nutty, granola-chewing organic types seem to be having more success than you, YS, in keeping their chicks alive."

Please don't grind that episode of enduring sorrow into my side. I'm really sorry I didn't take better care of my baby chickens that time.

I had three chicks survive. I just as easily could have had 20 die and 40 survive. I would still have had much sorrow and have felt terrible for with holding the medicine for the 20 who died.

You pointed out how some people have been obviously able to raise truly organic chickens without having them all die. You said, "I mean, they couldn't be selling chickens if they were all dying before they were ready to be processed - now could they?"

You didn't give any information about how many they had die, it's obvious that they didn't all die. Even I with my poor skills didn't have them all die, three out of sixty in that one instance survived.



I have something else to bring up. Now that they've found that antibiotic producing Streptomyces occurs in the soil in the natural environment. And further naturally occurring fermentation of grain stock produces from that natural yeast naturally occurring tetracycline.

Guess what! Chickens fed tetracycline in the chick starter and water are still organically raised chickens after all.



I see a way out of this argument between farmers and FDA. The FDA can say no more manufactured tetracycline is to be administered to live stock in a preventive way, and that will be fine.

Farmers can introduce Streptomyces soil yeasts into cracked grain stocks wait a while and then make that grain into the chick starter feed. And it will be so pure and organic too.

True enough. But if they are already looking for them, and they are finding them in greater numbers than before, that does mean they are increasing, right Sam?

http://dwb4.unl.edu/chem/chem869k/chem8 ... tibio.html

Antibiotic resistance spreads fast. Between 1979 and 1987, for example, only 0.02 percent of pneumococcus strains infecting a large number of patients surveyed by the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were penicillin-resistant. CDC's survey included 13 hospitals in 12 states. Today, 6.6 percent of pneumococcus strains are resistant, according to a report in the June 15, 1994, Journal of the American Medical Association by Robert F. Breiman, M.D., and colleagues at CDC. The agency also reports that in 1992, 13,300 hospital patients died of bacterial infections that were resistant to antibiotic treatment.

[snip][end]

That seems to suggest to me that
a) resistant strains existed in 1979 (and we were looking for them)
b) resistant strains existed in 1994 (and we were still looking for them)
c) since the number they were finding was 0.02% in 1979-87, and 6.6% in 1994
d) something must have happened between 1987 and 1994 that led to the increase
so
e) do you have a better theory than the increased overuse of antibiotics?



Yes, of course, the two environments do not interact.

http://www.keepantibioticsworking.com/l ... -sheet.pdf

Resistant bacteria can be transferred from animals to humans in three ways:

Via food: Meat in grocery stores is widely contaminated with antibiotic- resistant bacteria. A study in the Washington, DC, area found 20 percent of the sampled meat was contaminated with Salmonella and 84 percent of those bacteria were resistant to antibiotics used in human medicine and animal agriculture.15

Via working with animals:

Workers in the livestock industry may pick up resistant bacteria by handling animals, feed, and manure. They can then transfer the bacteria to family and community members.16

Via the environment: Groundwater, surface water, and soil are contami- nated from the nearly two trillion pounds of manure generated in the United States each year.17 This manure contains resistant bacteria, creating an immense pool of resist- ance genes available for transfer to bacteria that cause human disease.

[snip][end]

And, of course, once resistant bacteria transfer from animals to humans, humans never go into hospitals, now do they?

Clearly, no link between barnyards and hospitals! QED!



Looks like the entire Danish pig industry is doing well without antibiotics, that's why I moved on to them.



Well, I'm not a doctor (of medicine) any more than a farmer, but I think some of the antibiotics are purely synthetic (i.e. unlike tetracycline or penicillin, not derived from an organic source.)

If they have to be made in a laboratory, that means they are not found in nature, and therefore bacteria resistant to them could not have existed until we actually made them in the 20th century ... no?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibiotic ... er_animals

Role of other animals

Drugs are used in animals that are used as human food, such as cattle, pigs, chickens, fish, etc., and these drugs can affect the safety of the meat, milk, and eggs produced from those animals and can be the source of superbugs. For example, farm animals, particularly pigs, are believed to be able to infect people with MRSA.[27] The resistant bacteria in animals due to antibiotic exposure can be transmitted to humans via three pathways, those being through the consumption of meat, from close or direct contact with animals, or through the environment.[28]

The World Health Organization concluded antibiotics as growth promoters in animal feeds should be prohibited in the absence of risk assessments. In 1998, European Union health ministers voted to ban four antibiotics widely used to promote animal growth (despite their scientific panel's recommendations). Regulation banning the use of antibiotics in European feed, with the exception of two antibiotics in poultry feeds, became effective in 2006.[29] In Scandinavia, there is evidence that the ban has led to a lower prevalence of antimicrobial resistance in (nonhazardous) animal bacterial populations.[30] In the USA, federal agencies do not collect data on antibiotic use in animals, but animal-to-human spread of drug-resistant organisms has been demonstrated in research studies. Antibiotics are still used in U.S. animal feed, along with other ingredients which have safety concerns.[9][31]

Growing U.S. consumer concern about using antibiotics in animal feed has led to a niche market of "antibiotic-free" animal products, but this small market is unlikely to change entrenched, industry-wide practices.[32]

In 2001, the Union of Concerned Scientists estimated that greater than 70% of the antibiotics used in the US are given to food animals (for example, chickens, pigs and cattle) in the absence of disease.[33] In 2000, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced their intention to revoke approval of fluoroquinolone use in poultry production because of substantial evidence linking it to the emergence of fluoroquinolone-resistant Campylobacter infections in humans. The final decision to ban fluoroquinolones from use in poultry production was not made until five years later because of challenges from the food animal and pharmaceutical industries.[34] During 2007, two federal bills (S. 549[35] and H.R. 962[36]) aim at phasing out "nontherapeutic" antibiotics in US food animal production.

[snip][end]

Since fluoroquinolone has only existed since 1962, made in scientific laboratories, I doubt it is in the soil. Nor that drug-resistant bacteria resistant to it existed before 1962.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluoroquinolone

You know, Sam, they say us Jews love to argue (especially with each other!). I wonder where people get that idea.