2y ago

Commentary: We face a world potentially running out of antibiotics

www.channelnewsasia.com

77 comments

This has been known and warned for probably decades now.
But still we continue to "preemptively" use it in vast quantities in the meat, milk and egg industry instead of using sustainable or even humane conditions for the animals in question.
Guess who gets to eat antibiotics evey day, increasing likelihood of multi resistant germs?
Meat eaters. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8565197/
Nothing will be done about it until its too late. As is tradition. Profits are more important than world wide disaster. Again.
- Multiple countries need to fix their inadequate regulations to stop aggravating antibiotics resistance, including:
  India where there is "Inappropriate use of antibiotics [..] Largely unrestricted over-the-counter sales"
  China as you mentioned, need to continue efforts to reduce antibiotics (mis)use.
  European countries are collectively the world's biggest importer of food, including farmed animals periodically dosed with antibiotics. A 2022 ban on routine antibiotic use should hopefully avoid worst abuses on antibiotics, including for imports.
  
  I was also shocked to learn the US have over the counter antiobiotics that people pop for random illness and minor cuts/scrapes. Pretty much unthinkable here (EUN)
- Go vegan. It's better for the planet too.
  
  I know, i am vegan for those reasons and more :)
  
  being vegan doesn't help the planet at all.
- "Running out" is a bit of a weird title here, it doesn't mean that some deposit is running dry. There are more and more bacteria getting resistant for more and more types of antibiotics, making them no longer effective. Even a bottomless supply of antibiotics is useless if it doesn't actually kill the things it's supposed to kill.
  I suppose the "running out" part would mean that there are only so many types of antibiotics, if none of them are effective anymore (or not enough of them are effective enough) we would be in some deep shit.
  (being in deep shit may cause a severe risk of bacterial infection, I highly recommend not being in such a situation)
  
  So this has been reported for years now. We aren't running out of antibiotics. We are running out of options like you said. The real reason is that doctors would prescribe stronger antibiotics than were needed. Also, people would stop taking the full course because they felt better before then, and lastly, farms give antibiotics to their animals just in case, so any bacteria that would survive any of these is allowed to reproduce and become resistant to antibiotics.

77 comments