I worry. A lot. My worry gene works overtime. A doctor once told me it's called an "overactive checker" (or as I like to think of it, my OC). As far as afflictions go, it's not terrible. OC's are good to have around. They see danger from miles away. They pay close attention.
Motherhood can be particularly tough on OC's. We know too well that there's no such thing as "out of sight out of mind." But over the years I have come to terms with my checker, and now consider it a trusted friend. It was my checker that helped me raise my kids with a minimum of cuts and scratches, rear three dogs from eight-week-old puppies, and eventually opened my eyes to the looming dangers of global warming. It's the same trusted checker that is screaming, "Wake up! Wake up!" on the issue of antibiotic resistance.
Here is what I know for sure. We are dishing out 80 percent of our antibiotics on the animals we eat. Much of those antibiotics are used to make the animals grow faster, not to treat them for infections. Many critics of antibiotic-hungry factory farms claim producers are also using them to compensate for the truly disgusting living conditions in which most animals are raised, so bad that the industry is trying to make taking pictures of it illegal!
The industrial Ag business is free to use our antibiotics to make healthy animals grow faster, for what? To cut costs? Increase production? This is the meat we buy in grocery stores, and order from the drive-through window at fast food joints. Yup, that's one reason why many of those chicken fingers and burgers our kids love for lunch and dinner are so deceptively cheap these days. But is it worth losing our antibiotics for?
Without having debated it or voted on it, or decided as a nation, we are giving away our chances to save one of most precious medicines man has ever developed for human use. Medicines we know we are going to need for our children, our elderly parents, our loved ones.
While widespread misuse of antibiotics in human medicine plays no small role in the problem, scientists fear that the misuse of antibiotics in poultry and livestock production is a major contributor to our global antibiotic resistance dilemma. Drug resistant bacterial infections among people can lead to higher medical costs, and in the worst cases, death. You would be shocked by the number of annual deaths from diseases that have become highly resistant to antibiotics. In fact, the World Health Organization just announced that we're quickly heading towards a post-antibiotic era, in which "many common infections will no longer have a cure and, once again, kill unabated."
Let's see what we're talking about:
Every year in the U.S., there are 90,000 cases of invasive staph that are highly resistant to our best antibiotics, and can be life-threatening. Around the world, about 440,000 new cases of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis emerge annually. As a result, 150,000 people die each year.
More than 80% of the E. coli found in meat products is resistant to one or more antibiotics used for treatment.
The bacteria that cause certain types of pneumonia and meningitis are rapidly becoming resistant to standard antibiotics.
All of this means that infections are becoming increasingly harder and more expensive to treat, and in some cases, no treatment even exists.
How ironic that our pediatricians and doctors have hammered into our brains that 'You must finish all ten days of this antibiotic or it won't be effective the next time!' Moms diligently follow that rule, without any idea that the effectiveness of these drugs is being undermined every single day.
We have to stop this. Researchers have known for half a century that bacteria develop resistance to antibiotics over time. The more antibiotics are used, the quicker bacteria become resistant. That is why the FDA, the USDA, the American Medical Association, the Infectious Diseases Society of America, the American Public Health Association, the CDC and many others have all publicly criticized the overuse of antibiotics in livestock.
This is seriously scary stuff. These past months have been a terrifying reminder that we have to be prepared for disasters here at home. Safety kits have been checked, extra water and food stored, and iodine pills have flown off the shelves across America. But we know that real preparation comes in the form of foresight, planning, and preserving our assets, including the effectiveness of our doctors and medicines.
Even without a natural disaster descending upon us in America, the ability of our doctors to treat health epidemics is being seriously undermined, setting us up for another kind of disaster -- a health catastrophe.
And still, with everything we do know, with all the reports in, research done, warnings cited, very little is being done to stop it. That's where worrying moms come in.
Moms, do you remember being given a choice, whether or not you prefer saving our best medicines, our antibiotics, in case a loved one comes down with a terrible illness, or pneumonia? Or do you prefer to continue to hand over our precious medicines to factory farms so that we can continue our supersized addiction to meat.
I don't remember being given a choice. Do you? Talk about it tonight at dinner. See what the family thinks. Then let's do something about it.
Follow Laurie David on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Laurie_David
Everly Macario, ScD, MS, EdM: Antibiotic Resistance: One Mother's Fight
Kathy Freston: How to Kick Your Meat Addiction
Sunil Chacko: Time for Antibiotics-Free Animal Industry Practices
Many years ago working my way through Grad school in Environmental Toxicology, the first thing I thought would be a refreshing change, is that before any new product is brought to market, no matter whether its solid/liquid;must undergo rigorous testing to determine potential risk to living systems.
We know the prohibitive problem-cost!
We put money before people& can be seen in a multitude of examples in our daily lives, from the way people drive dangerously on the streets, to short cutting tasks at the workplace to save time or money, because ultimately work is the lifeblood utility for sustenance & unfortunately the commons & the good of humanity as paramount to our living processes is secondary in the aggregate to what we do all across the planet
The Corporate mindset & the political economy purchased by the enormous weight of capitalist wealth will all but ensure this self-destructive system is always maintained to ensure a 3% economic growth rate per year without hitting another crisis.
The Corporate mindset will never bear front-end cost to protect you or the environment, but drag the money out over the long haul through court fights & product litigation.
There is something particularly hideous about this, and why Ms. Davis all of us need OC.
That was my earlier point about Capitalism-change conceptualizations of how we meet the essential needs of our society where maintaining integrity of public health & we have a starting point for the restoration of humanity.
It's called "Capitalism" Especially the latest incarnation of it called "Neoliberal Capitalism".
It is this umbrella at the macro level that influences what we do at the micro-level of our lives in everything that we do, because it is the system we use to provide the engine of life itself for us.
And in this regard has built into it systemic risks of internal contradictions embedded within it, which is the cause & effect paradigm that manifests repercussive harms that come to humanity including Fukushima as icing on the cake.
In man's history it's shown to be resilient, producing the great achievements in mans history out of competition to each other & unleashing the power of innovation & free spirit, it has also come at a huge expense to our own humanity to become a system of meeting our essential needs by cutting off our nose to spite our face.
We've evolved into creatures which fail to account for the consideration of other entities in what we do to meet our needs, which over time spells our ultimate erosion..
I mean, if I was ET doing a fly by examining the human civilization, the first question I would ask, is why on Earth would a species in order to provide for their daily needs produce by-products that harm themselves-an internal contradiction to their own survival?.
Are they just plain inept, or what?
Where do they learn this kind of self-destructive behavior?
Its all based on Capital accumulation because besides 6- hours of average sleep each night, the majority of us spend our waking hours doing things to accumulate capital most of which consideration for what we do in the interest of humanity is left at the door.
Is this learned behavior, or are we simply hard wired to do things in life where an overriding consideration for the consequences to others is secondary out of self interest learned through a system of capital accumulation?
I would like to know how that plays into this Ms. Davis.
I believe we need to confront this issue if we expect to change the culture of needing OC's so much if we know we have our backs covered.
We don't trust each other subconsciously. is that it?
http://www.politicolnews.com/why-russia-bans-us-meat/
I wanted to clarify one point: when taking oral antibiotics, it is actually very important to complete the entire one or two week prescription period, taking all doses at their properly spaced intervals. A lot of research goes into understanding the concentration of antibiotic in the body over time. Low levels of antibiotic in your system actually increase the exposure of existing bacteria to the antibiotic and increase the likelihood of that population to develop resistance. If all of the bacteria have not been killed off, early termination of antibiotic treatment can allow these antibiotic-exposed bacteria to fight back and spread resistance further.
And as for what to do about this problem, I have become a believer that my choices and purchasing power do make a difference. I eat vegetarian when there isn't a naturally raised meat option and others ask why and become curious about these issues too. Interestingly, I don't crave that mass produced meat at all anymore, just a good hamburger from naturally raised beef or bison every so often.
Apart from some over-the-counter ointments, pharmacies cannot provide antibiotics to the public without a doctor's approval (and even then, antibiotics are said to be over-prescribed). That makes sense. But you can buy them by the sackful to give to animals that are not sick. This amounts to criminal negligence, except that it's legal.
as i mentioned before, if the organic healthy food was more affordable and accessable to get, then more people would be eating healthy. no need to table talk at dinnerfor me... it's already in my lifestyle.
i just would like the companies/manufacturers to make it more affordable. it' over priced and money matters. price matters. not every one lives in million dollar tudor mansion with extra space or has thousands of extra dollars.... most americans and other countries, let's not even get started with the other countries in need, but in america, most people with a humble income can't get or afford healthy food. period.
i'd like to live more organic, but even in nyc, it's like a 45min train ride to a trader joe's or whole foods supermarket. everything else is bodegas or rotten fruit stands and crappy grocery stores that don't even carry organic food- let alone healthy food.
i still want to self sustain. my dream is the yurt or bamboo zen house on an acre or half. no wonder the old timers long for the old days of farming and trains and not cars, and i am only 35 & agree with them. funny that.
Europe 'losing' superbugs battle
Antibiotic-resistant infections have reached unprecedented levels and now outstrip our ability to fight them with existing drugs, European health experts are warning.
These superbugs are resistant to carbapenem antibiotics, which is concerning for experts because they are some of our most powerful weapons and are used for hard-to-treat infections that evade other drugs.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12975693
Knowing that the meat doesn't have any hormones or antibiotics in it is definitely nice. Especially when I feed it to my 18 month old daughter. But it also tastes MUCH better than storebought beef. This beef actually has a BEEFY taste! Not just a chewey texture and salty flavor.
It's also cheaper. I have a freezer full of steaks, t-bones, ribs, roasts, stewmeat and ground beef and it all cost me about $1 a pound!
Sometimes there is such a thing as a win-win situation. And this, my friends, is it. So hop on Craigslist and get in contact with your local ranchers. That's my suggestion anyhow!