(NaturalNews) The steady medical advance against viruses and bacteria that many experts were trumpeting in the early days of vaccines and antibiotics seems to have stalled, if not reversed. The ongoing emergence of new and increasingly drug-resistant diseases is now causing many to question whether the war against microbes is one that can ever be won.
"It is a war of attrition," said David Livermore of the United Kingdom's Health Protection Agency. "There have been points where we have been advancing, and points when we have had to beat a retreat. If we were having this conversation 20 years ago, for instance, we would be celebrating the vaccine for bacterial meningitis."
The news these days contains less of celebration and more of alarm. Even with H1N1 swine flu now appearing less dangerous than originally thought and infection rates of the superbug Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) falling in the United Kingdom, widespread antibiotic use and a globalized world have made the processes of pathogen evolution and spread faster than ever before.
The threat from the highly lethal H5N1 bird flu - a mere mutation away from a highly contagious form - has not abated, and other infectious threats thought long vanquished continue to rear their heads. China, for example, is currently battling an outbreak of pneumonic plague caused by Yersina pestis, the same bacterium that wiped out a third of Europe's population as the Black Plague. Meanwhile, longer lifespans have encouraged the emergence of suberbugs such as Clostridium difficile, which preferentially targets elderly patients who have already been treated with antibiotics.
"Sensible prescribing is part of the answer, but we also need new antibiotics," Livermore said. "It's not one of the most attractive areas for pharmaceutical companies as people don't take them for very long, unlike treatments for heart disease or cancer."
"We will always be at war with microbes," said Primrose Freestone of the University of Leicester. "Their genetic promiscuity is impressive."
Sources for this story include: news.bbc.co.uk.
Showing posts with label antibiotics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label antibiotics. Show all posts
Friday, February 12, 2010
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
70 Percent of antibiotics used on animals slaughtered for food
(NaturalNews) Widespread antibiotic use in animal agriculture is drawing increasing fire as a primary cause of the growing prevalence of drug-resistant and ever more lethal superbugs.
"There is clear evidence of the human health consequences [from agricultural use of antibiotics, including] infections that would not have otherwise occurred, increased frequency of treatment failures (in some cases death) and increased severity of infections," the World Health Organization wrote in 2003.
Seventy percent of all antibiotics used in the United States are used promote growth or prevent infection in healthy farm animals -- in other words, animals that are not showing any signs of disease.
"The heavy reliance on routine antibiotic use is a byproduct of the way we raise animals for food: packed into dim and dirty enclosures where they live amid their own filth, eat food that they haven't evolved to digest, and are pretty much stacked atop one another," writes columnist Ezra Klein in the Washington Post.
The food industry claims that such antibiotic use is necessary to keep food prices low for consumers.
"That really is a strange defense," said U.S. Rep. Louise Slaughter. "We keep animals in such deplorable conditions that they'll become sick as a dog if we don't dose them?"
The industry's argument is weak on financial grounds as well, Klein says. According to a study conducted by researchers at Tufts University, antibiotic resistant infections cost the U.S. health-care system $50 billion per year. In contrast, the National Academy of Sciences concluded that ending non-therapeutic antibiotic use in farm animals would raise the cost of meat consumption by $5 to $10 per person per year.
"I'd pay that for a lower risk of super-staphylococcus," Klein writes.
Slaughter has introduced a bill, H.R. 1549, that would ban non-medical use of the most effective human antibiotics.
"The bill preserves the seven most effective classes of antibiotics for human use only," she said. "They can be used to treat sick animals, but they can't be used to simply raise animals."
Sources for this story include: www.washingtonpost.com.
"There is clear evidence of the human health consequences [from agricultural use of antibiotics, including] infections that would not have otherwise occurred, increased frequency of treatment failures (in some cases death) and increased severity of infections," the World Health Organization wrote in 2003.
Seventy percent of all antibiotics used in the United States are used promote growth or prevent infection in healthy farm animals -- in other words, animals that are not showing any signs of disease.
"The heavy reliance on routine antibiotic use is a byproduct of the way we raise animals for food: packed into dim and dirty enclosures where they live amid their own filth, eat food that they haven't evolved to digest, and are pretty much stacked atop one another," writes columnist Ezra Klein in the Washington Post.
The food industry claims that such antibiotic use is necessary to keep food prices low for consumers.
"That really is a strange defense," said U.S. Rep. Louise Slaughter. "We keep animals in such deplorable conditions that they'll become sick as a dog if we don't dose them?"
The industry's argument is weak on financial grounds as well, Klein says. According to a study conducted by researchers at Tufts University, antibiotic resistant infections cost the U.S. health-care system $50 billion per year. In contrast, the National Academy of Sciences concluded that ending non-therapeutic antibiotic use in farm animals would raise the cost of meat consumption by $5 to $10 per person per year.
"I'd pay that for a lower risk of super-staphylococcus," Klein writes.
Slaughter has introduced a bill, H.R. 1549, that would ban non-medical use of the most effective human antibiotics.
"The bill preserves the seven most effective classes of antibiotics for human use only," she said. "They can be used to treat sick animals, but they can't be used to simply raise animals."
Sources for this story include: www.washingtonpost.com.
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