The Superbug Nightmare Is Here
By James Donahue
December 8, 2016
Biologists and medical researchers have been warning about an onset of new strains of deadly anti-resistant bacteria that could sweep the world. The problem has been that doctors have been too quick over the years to prescribe antibiotics to treat bacterial infections, even when healthy patients had the ability to naturally use their immune systems to fight off the infections.
Most doctors and their patients headed the warnings in recent years and we all started being more cautious about the way we used antibiotics. But the drug resistant strains continued to develop. What was causing it?
A report by Tom Philpott for Mother Jones noted that operators of major factory farms that were producing thousands of heads of livestock were dosing their animals with all varieties of these antibiotics to assure their health from the time they were born until they could be slaughtered for the markets. Meat eaters have been feeding on these animals and consequently getting a silent and unexpected overdosing of medicines they were unaware of.
Not only this, but the excess drugs were being passed off into lakes and streams through livestock urine and the careless disposal of unused medications. Consequently the drugs are also found in our drinking water.
Now, at perhaps the worst time in U.S. history for this to happen, the new drug-resistant strains of E. coli, salmonella, and enterobacteriaceae are showing up in livestock all over the world. They first appeared in China, then Europe, and this year on a pig farm in the United States, the Philpott article states.
Up until now there has been two powerful “last-resort” antibiotics that could still hold back these deadly new developing strains. They are known as colostin and carbapenems. But the new strains are now showing resistance to both of them.
And wouldn’t you know it. The big pharmaceutical companies haven’t developed any new antibiotics for about 30 years. The cost of this kind of research is high and the profits are limited because the drugs, once marketed, are used sparingly. Consequently there is little incentive, even now, for the development of a new line of defense against these oncoming bacterial infections.
As Philpott explains, even though the Obama Administration has introduced a new set of guidelines in an attempt to control the use of antibiotics on farms, they been of little help. This is because the guidelines are voluntary and they tend to work against the “profit motive” enjoyed by the corporate-owned farming operations.
“And now,” Philpott wrote, “even as terrifying superbugs continue appearing in the United States, we have a new president whose agriculture advisers have expressed nothing but hostility toward regulating food production.”
By James Donahue
December 8, 2016
Biologists and medical researchers have been warning about an onset of new strains of deadly anti-resistant bacteria that could sweep the world. The problem has been that doctors have been too quick over the years to prescribe antibiotics to treat bacterial infections, even when healthy patients had the ability to naturally use their immune systems to fight off the infections.
Most doctors and their patients headed the warnings in recent years and we all started being more cautious about the way we used antibiotics. But the drug resistant strains continued to develop. What was causing it?
A report by Tom Philpott for Mother Jones noted that operators of major factory farms that were producing thousands of heads of livestock were dosing their animals with all varieties of these antibiotics to assure their health from the time they were born until they could be slaughtered for the markets. Meat eaters have been feeding on these animals and consequently getting a silent and unexpected overdosing of medicines they were unaware of.
Not only this, but the excess drugs were being passed off into lakes and streams through livestock urine and the careless disposal of unused medications. Consequently the drugs are also found in our drinking water.
Now, at perhaps the worst time in U.S. history for this to happen, the new drug-resistant strains of E. coli, salmonella, and enterobacteriaceae are showing up in livestock all over the world. They first appeared in China, then Europe, and this year on a pig farm in the United States, the Philpott article states.
Up until now there has been two powerful “last-resort” antibiotics that could still hold back these deadly new developing strains. They are known as colostin and carbapenems. But the new strains are now showing resistance to both of them.
And wouldn’t you know it. The big pharmaceutical companies haven’t developed any new antibiotics for about 30 years. The cost of this kind of research is high and the profits are limited because the drugs, once marketed, are used sparingly. Consequently there is little incentive, even now, for the development of a new line of defense against these oncoming bacterial infections.
As Philpott explains, even though the Obama Administration has introduced a new set of guidelines in an attempt to control the use of antibiotics on farms, they been of little help. This is because the guidelines are voluntary and they tend to work against the “profit motive” enjoyed by the corporate-owned farming operations.
“And now,” Philpott wrote, “even as terrifying superbugs continue appearing in the United States, we have a new president whose agriculture advisers have expressed nothing but hostility toward regulating food production.”