Comments on: MRSA ST398 & the Overuse of Nontherapeutic Antibiotics

By: It’s like they have a playbook « A Man With A Ph.D.

It’s like they have a playbook « A Man With A Ph.D. — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 16:47:50 +0000

[...] Kristof’s Column: [Via Mike the Mad Biologist] Always listen to the Mad Biologist. By way of Joe Windish at The Moderate Voice, we find out, just as I predicted, that the pork lobby would claim we don’t know enough about [...]

By: MRSA ST398 story emerges again in mainstream media

MRSA ST398 story emerges again in mainstream media — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 20:24:44 +0000

[...] via MRSA ST398 & the Overuse of Nontherapeutic Antibiotics. [...]

By: daveroberts

daveroberts — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 17:10:59 +0000

For the last 9 months I have been tracking the MRSA ST398 situation and have compiled an extensive research website that brings together information from over 70 sources. Visit www.st398.com link above for extensive background to this story.

By: CStanley

CStanley — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 15:44:01 +0000

It's really important to know the full story before forming conclusions. Here is the AVMA testimony before Congress on the issue of antibiotic use in livestock.

First, this is not at all analogous to Big Tobacco claiming that the data wasn't conclusive. In this case, as detailed in the link I provided, Denmark already experimented with a moratorium on livestock antibiotic additives and the results not only didn't help AB resistance problems, they ended up with new problems of food borne disease.

And that's part of the issue too. Far from being about preventing a little piggy's ear infection, the use of antibiotics prophylactically in livestock serves the purposes of decreasing food borne pathogens like Salmonella and promoting more efficient growth (which keeps meat products affordable and helps feed a growing world population.)

By: DaGoat

DaGoat — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 15:25:41 +0000

As it applies to the US, inappropriate usage of antibiotics by physicians is a much bigger factor than agricultural use. In that sense this article is really aiming at the wrong target. It's like attacking pollution by focusing on snow blowers.

By: MiketheMadBiologist

MiketheMadBiologist — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 12:00:30 +0000

What's worse is that the Netherlands has a very aggressive MRSA hospital control program known as 'search and destroy': they screen all patients (and isolate those with MRSA). They do the same for hospital workers (mandatory sick leave if you're a carrier). If it's still showing up in their hospitals, we're really in trouble.

By: GeorgeSorwell

GeorgeSorwell — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 10:45:37 +0000

Antibiotics have, in the developed world at least, caused a fundamental change in the human condition. The change has been so fundamental that nobody even sees it anymore.