Riding piggyback (farm infections --> people)
Posted by catkin on Dec 12, 2007 · Member since Aug 2007 · 126 posts
Hope the link below works - it's to an article in last week's Economist (I know, I know but I read it for work). It's about the new and very scary effects of antibiotic use in factory farmed pigs. If it doesn't work properly, maybe you could type it in? It bothered me - a lot
http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10205187
*mod note: i added a little more to the title to help clarify what the post is about.
;D "Filthy surroundings that are home to a population fed on antibiotics provide the ideal breeding grounds for superbugs. But badly run hospitals are not the only such places."
We discussed this a lot when I was in college. People are making quick money right by unwisely using drugs. I think our next pandemic won't be because there's a new disease and we don't have medicine for it. I think it will be because we've created superbugs that can't be treated by conventional medicine and the outbreak will be something that we could have treated if the drugs worked.
>:(
ah, yes. i love things like this. whenever people talk about our new advancements and cure for disease i talk about how many we have created.
One thing that I really noticed when we lived in the States was how easy it was to buy antibiotics and products with antibiotics in them over the counter. Antibiotics are only ever sold on prescription over here, and God knows, antibiotic resistance is high enough in this country. Roll on the next epidemic...