Antibiotic use in Farm Animals

[Catherine]

This isn't the most exciting article, but it is an important issue.
It is a report about some European countries. Every country is different and we can't assume it is the same everywhere, but the dangerous effects of antibiotic use is the same everywhere. We get an increase in antibiotic resistant bacteria which has consequences for human and animal life.

http://www.soilassociation.org/news/news...-human-inf

Of course the antibiotics are needed when animals are kept in factory farming conditions. So this is yet another reason why factory farming is bad. We have made so many bad choices about how we raise farm animals. It is starting to have serious negative consequences.

If I can find other articles I will post them.

[Tobi]

Thanks for this post, and link. I hadn't seen it. It is becoming obvious we cannot continue feeding animals antibiotics....either that, or something has to change. Or we face deadly outbreaks of infections for which there is no cure.

Not consuming any animal products of course, would be protective. It's the day-to-day consumption of minute amounts of antibiotic through the food obtained from these animals, which causes antibiotic resistance.

This is bound to be affecting our own pets and meat-eating animals too.

However, I was pleased to find out that my neighbouring farm does not use preventative antibiotics for their dairy cows. I asked, a few years ago, and the farmer told me they will only use antibiotics in cases of illness (such as mastitis etc) and then that particular cow's milk isn't included in the yield for a couple of weeks (I think he said 2 weeks.)
If that's their practice, it may be the same for all the farms in this area.
The one good thing about dairy farming in my area is that although not a perfect life for cows, it isn't factory-farming, and the cows live fairly decent lives under their circumstances.

[Catherine]

You are lucky about the dairy farms in your area. The factory farms for meat and milk and probably eggs too are all using antibiotics.

We are setting ourselves up for a medical disaster. There are strains of bacteria that are killers and we have no protection. It is worse than the pre-antibiotic days. We have been making bacteria stronger by our practices. All the antibacterial soaps make things worse as well.

Some of the companies are making a point of saying their meat is antibiotic free. They are doing TV ads to tell people that their meat is raised without antibiotics and hormones. The growth hormones are just as dangerous.

How ironic, we have found ways to mass produce food, but now the food is not safe to eat.

[LPC]

So true. It is far too easy for farmers to get antibiotics, and once in stock they can use them whenever they choose.

Some farmers are quite responsible and only use them when an animal is sick with a bacterial infection. But as you both have said above, the trouble is that intensive (factory) farming practices are such that disease spreads like wildfire and the animals, never seeing the light of day or able to move about freely, have very low resistance. That is a powder keg, which the intensive farmers have tried to keep keep under wraps by massive overuse of antibiotics. Some farms even inject antibiotics regularly, just as a preventative measure. That is highly irresponsible and now we are beginning to suffer the consequences.

As the saying goes, the chickens are coming home to roost....

[Catherine]

Quote:Some farmers are quite responsible and only use them when an animal is sick with a bacterial infection. But as you both have said above, the trouble is that intensive (factory) farming practices are such that disease spread like wildfire and the animals, never seeing the light of day or able to move about freely, have very low resistance. That is a powder keg, which the intensive farmers have tried to keep keep under wraps by massive overuse of antibiotics. Some farms even inject antibiotics regularly, just as a preventative measure. That is highly irresponsible and now we are beginning to suffer the consequences.

This is the real problem. The antibiotics are used as a preventive measure. It allows the animals to survive the substandard conditions inherent in factory farming. However this over use of antibiotics has killed off weaker bacteria and allowed stronger strains to survive and multiply and worse, it has "selected" for any strain that is antibiotic resistant. So we have stronger strains of bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics.
We are eating food from factory farmed sources so we are not getting the best nourishment and it comes with a lot of "baggage". Food from stressed animals contains stress hormones and who knows what else.

So we are weaker, the animals are weaker and the bacteria are stronger. It is a very dangerous situation and we have created it.

The wise people are the ones who are vegetarians or who at least look at their food sources. However if we are hit with an epidemic of an antibiotic resistant disease we all could be in danger.

[LPC]

(03-04-2015, 04:38 PM)Catherine Wrote: However if we are hit with an epidemic of an antibiotic resistant disease we all could be in danger.

Sadly, yes. The antibiotic-resistant bacteria do not stop to enquire, "Are you a vegetarian or vegan?" For example, any person going into a hospital is at risk, as a sick, weak person - vegetarian or not - is open to attack by the resistant strains commonly found there (just because a hospital is naturally full of sick people!). My dear father died in hospital, with MRSA a contributory factor.

If the whole world were to renounce meat eating, factory farming would cease, and the misuse of antibiotics with it. However, it seems that humankind is not ready for that - so we will have to watch the chickens come home to roost, as far as antibiotics are concerned.

[Tobi]

My husband got MRSA in bed sores while in hospital for prostate cancer which had spread to his bones. Thus he was semi-paralysed and couldn't shift position without help.

He came home for a short time, and I treated these sores -not with the ointment the district nurse provided -but with a lotion made from Echinacea Angustifolia, Golden Seal, and Myrrh. The bedsores (and the MRSA) started to heal from the outside in. Fresh pink skin became obvious around the margins of the wounds, and was working its way inwards well.

Unfortunately he had to return to hospital. I told the nurses and the consultant in charge, what I had done, and they were interested. I then left a bottle of the home made lotion beside his bed. It was never used.
I was then informed that it hadn't been used because "there was danger of infection entering the hospital via items from patients' homes."

He started to refuse food, so I cooked him healthy food which he liked, and took it in to him. He started to eat again. I found a sneaky way to get it heated up in the nurses' station microwave....until of course, they found out. Then the good food I had brought in was thrown away and I was instructed not to bring any food from home as it may transmit e-coli or Salmonella....

The poor man passed in hospital. I hope to pass either in bed or in a field.

[Catherine]

MRSA is a really serious problem and so is C. Difficile.
Antibiotic strains of E Coli and Salmonella also exist and of course T.B. which is making a comeback.

Hospitals are the worst place for such things. I would think hospital food would be more dangerous than any home cooked meal.

Basic home nursing and actually caring for a patient no longer happens in a hospital setting.

So we have set ourselves up with dangerous bacteria and we have hospitals that are set up to further their transmission.
We are an accident waiting to happen. You are right, vegans and vegetarians are as much at risk as those who eat meat. It is unfair, but bacteria do not discriminate.

I like the field idea. I certainly don't go anywhere near a hospital. It is safer that way.