UK Milk Supply Contains New MRSA Strain 179
Tests on milk from several different farms across the U.K. have turned up evidence for a new strain of MRSA — bacteria which have evolved resistance to common antibiotics. As long as the milk is properly pasteurized, it poses no threat to consumers, but anyone working directly with the animals bears a small risk of infection. According to The Independent,
"The disclosure comes amid growing concern over the use of modern antibiotics on British farms, driven by price pressure imposed by the big supermarket chains. Intensive farming with thousands of animals raised in cramped conditions means infections spread faster and the need for antibiotics is consequently greater. Three classes of antibiotics rated as 'critically important to human medicine' by the World Health Organization – cephalosporins, fluoroquinolones and macrolides – have increased in use in the animal population by eightfold in the last decade."
Nothing to worry about (Score:5, Funny)
They just need to be sure they regularly dose their cows with the right antibiotic...
Re:Nothing to worry about (Score:5, Interesting)
Stop using methicillin and the resistance will go away. Microbiology 101.
It takes less than 10 divisions for the microbe not producing resistance to take over since it has a fitness advantage of not needing to invest energy in resistance.
If they were to employ scientists not partially, but fully, in this issue, we would have it solved by now. The prblem is that the long term answers by scientists would reduce short term gains desired by business.
Alas, pursuit of capital over what is right will again shoot us in the foot. The market has no long term plans or goals. Regulation and intervention with science is the only way now.
Re:Nothing to worry about (Score:5, Interesting)
If they were to employ scientists not partially, but fully, in this issue, we would have it solved by now. The prblem is that the long term answers by scientists would reduce short term gains desired by business.
This.
I cringe every time I hear people accusing scientists of scaremongering for the money. The big money in all the controversial areas is on the anti-science side, without exception.
Re:Nothing to worry about (Score:5, Informative)
Settle down you two. You do realize that the term 'scientists' is broadly encompassing? People that work for the evil industry. People whose moral compass shines brightly through the evil fog of the world (that's IT, no more caffeine this morning).
They don't live under volcanoes and play with obese felines. Well, most of them anyway.
First of all, bacterial resistance genes turn out to me much more complex than previously thought. Many resistance genes have evolved on cassettes [wikipedia.org] which have the ability to evolve irrespective of the host bacterial genome. So they are selected to hang around, even in the absence of the initial selection factor.
Further, these cassettes can be transmitted to OTHER bacteria even without antibiotic selection and annoyingly enough, tend to get lumped together into multiple antibiotic resistant bacteria. So, we've let the cat out of the bag - it was inevitable although we managed to make it a bigger problem faster than need be.
TL;DR antibiotic resistance is going to be around a long time whether or not we use the antibiotics. Scientists aren't all greedy douchebags. There are more things in heaven and earth, dear Slashdotters, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
Re:Nothing to worry about (Score:5, Informative)
They reject the casette when the selecting factor is removed. Fyi.
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This is in opposition to certain interest groups who try to paint them as such: climate deniers, agro businesses, etc.
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I'm really puzzled as to how you managed to read my post and get the exact opposite of what I was saying out of it.
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Re:Nothing to worry about (Score:4, Informative)
> no recorded case of a resistant strain being developed due to antibiotics used on cows
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/02/21/147190101/how-using-antibiotics-in-animal-feed-creates-superbugs [npr.org]
Please note that I found that in a quick Google search. In this case, an antibiotic-susceptible organism jumped into pigs, became methicillin resistant. OK, that's not cows, but that shows me that the concern is based in real science.
Bacteria don't care where they live, as long as it's a suitable environment. In any such environment, if regularly exposed to antibiotics, they could develop resistance. This is true in food animals, humans, or petri dishes in the laboratory.
For you to make that assertion, I can only assume that either you are (a) uninformed or (b) a shill for Big Pharma, who make megatons of money off dumping antibiotics into the food chain.
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because big pharma cares enough to hire shills to astroturf on /.
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Stop using methicillin and the resistance will go away. Microbiology 101.
It takes less than 10 divisions for the microbe not producing resistance to take over since it has a fitness advantage of not needing to invest energy in resistance.
Un fortunately that is not true. Now it is true that for some types of drug resistance that can happen. But in general some types of resistance, like for example eflux pumps, are so generic and cover so many function in the bug that they mechanism won't go away just because one drug is removed.
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That was my first response when I saw his stupid comment, then it occurred to me he's trying vainly to be funny.
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he's trying vainly to be funny.
Apparently the mods disagree with you.
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It isn't the first time and won't be the last. The mods must have had some really good weed yesterday.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Nerds and humor (Score:5, Funny)
Re:ummm uncommon antibiotics (Score:5, Funny)
It is far easier to cook a piece of meat sufficiently to kill germs than to cook your salad/fruits.
Not to mention your left arm, once it gets infected.
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> We reap what we sow.
Granted. So why don't we insist that those who did the sowing get the first fruits of the harvest?
In other words: make the management of these food factories eat and drink these foodstuffs before they are shipped off to the market.
Problem solved in a matter of DAYS. :)
And this is how the world will end.... (Score:5, Insightful)
With an ever increasing pressure to drop prices so that the numbers in the next quarter (or, for the long-term corporate leaders, next 2 years) are met. Screw the fact that we're raising a whole class of nasty bugs that will enable us to relive the glory of pre-penicillin times, when something as simple as a cut meant possible amputation of the affected limb.
Antibiotic resistance is probably one of the worst things we're facing down in the coming century or so, right next to AGC. Both have the ability to have a tremendous negative impact on our lives, and both are a long time off - in other words, they are things no politician or corporate owner will want to touch while they're still working.
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Re:And this is how the world will end.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if we assume that the market forces are able to work in Adam Smith's idealized way, market forces have to obey the laws of physics. Math is also a bitch to work around.
In other words, the free market is not a silver bullet even in the best-case scenario. In the worst-case scenario, it is a botched free market that will prevent us from finding a workable solution. And we are far closer to a botched free market than a perfect free market. Draw your own conclusions.
But But But... (Score:3)
What about the Free Market?
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Antibiotic resistance is probably one of the worst things we're facing down in the coming century or so,
This is true, and finding MRSA in the wild brings this much closer be becoming a far more universal problem.
The playing field is vastly different than in the pre-penicillin days when the only hope of finding a "cure" was an exhaustive search to find a compound that would kill the bugs. The very name MRSA stems from resistance to penicillin type drugs. Now with rapid DNA sequencing we can not only identify MRSA much faster [huffingtonpost.com], but we _should_ also be able to find additional ways to kill it, including some phys [cdc.gov]
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Actually, you can develop resistance to what you call "physical means", too, up to a point. Just look at the rise of triclosan resistance since the proliferation of antibacterial soap. There are even reports of some UV-resistant bacteria [slashdot.org] out there.
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What's AGC? Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] was no help. Just want to make sure I know all the things I should be freaking out about. :-)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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And yet few want to talk about the root problem here. Too many humans. If we had 1/10 of the human population on earth, there would be far less need to cram animals together, and thus less need for the antibiotics in farming.
What do you expect from people who refuse to believe in the facts of natural selection? The MRSA strain hitting the UK's milk supply is proof positive of natural selection.
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Natural selection would be if we didn't make so much food and then only the people that can survive on less food survived.
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humans drinking cow's milk may not be natural, but by that end cooking food isn't natural either. no other creature does it.
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You implied that it's not natural and therefor wrong. Which is stupid.
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and don't get me started on the fact that we're the only species that wears clothes.
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plenty of species out there without fur or feathers.
sounds like you're strainin' to do a little explainin'.
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cooking (and by extension pasteurization) dramatically expanded the list of things we can safely eat and reduced deaths from even things that seem innocuous.
In your proposed world: Fresh vegetables..yummy...do they need cooked? Depends...did some infected animal crap or slobber on them? You want to take that chance?
You're an idiot for even suggesting we roll back thousands of years of human progress and return to the age of random death for unexplained reasons cause of tainted food.
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actually it is natural selection at work there. being able to digest milk in adult age raised the survival rate (as in additional nutrition source) so european population is genetically predisposed with continuous lactase production.
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And even people of European decent will stop producing lactase if they stop consuming lactose f
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agriculture isnt natural
animal husbandry isnt natural
lets all go back to hunting and killing and gathering our own food, eating it raw or dirty freshly dug up frmt he ground.
ya lets go back to that.
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And yet few want to talk about the root problem here. Too many humans.
Every time I hear someone utter this type of rhetoric I can't help but to think they are suicidal or homicidal maniacs.
Pound for pound the Earth can, and has, sustained a much larger mammalian population than your "unworthy of life" humans.
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Re:Growth promotors (Score:5, Insightful)
And yet few want to talk about the root problem here. Too many humans.
Every time I hear someone utter this type of rhetoric I can't help but to think they are suicidal or homicidal maniacs.
Pound for pound the Earth can, and has, sustained a much larger mammalian population than your "unworthy of life" humans.
Homo industrialis has a much bigger environmental footprint that any dinosaur, whale or large mammal created. That said, other animals and plants have significantly changed the environment in the past to the detriment of some organisms and advantage of others. Shit happens.
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But we don't have too many humans. You can put us all in texas and it would have the same population density as new york.
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Do you want to be killed first?
For the good if the planet?
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No thanks, just not have children if that's OK with you. Do the same and within 100 years all those problems will go away.
Re:Growth promotors (Score:5, Funny)
He's a /. geek: Chances are good that there's not much risk of him having children.
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Re:Growth promotors (Score:5, Interesting)
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And we'd be all the more miserable for it. Meat is delicious. And it doesn't hurt that it's an excellent source of protein, too (even well-trained vegans still find this bit challenging at times).
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We are meat eaters (technically omnivores, but that by definition includes a portion of meat). Get over it. Animal protien is still the only one stop shop for -all- amino acids in one easy meal. yes we have learned over time that we can mix and match foods, but that took years of science and agriculture. do we need meat at every meal? no, but neither do we need fruits or grains at every meal to get all the good stuff from them either.
Stopping everyone from eating meat is silly. Nor would we all be healthier
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And would you like to talk about the problem?
The problem isn't in the first world... not THAT problem anyway. The birth rates in the US and other first world countries are on the decline. We work longer and have fewer children. The third world countries, on the other hand, can't ship their children to us fast enough. And in those countries, they keep having children they can't feed. All those "feed the children" charities aren't paying for television ads for no reason are they?
So we have a problem alri
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even if we had 1/10th the population, we'd still cram animals together in these conditions.
the real root problem here isn't as much 'too many humans' as it is 'just plain ol humanity'. we do this stuff to animals because as a people we really don't give a shit and we save money. two things that when added together make an unstoppable force for destruction.
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> If we had 1/10 of the human population on earth
May I assume that you would volunteer to be one of those who die in order to decrease the surplus population?
(Echoes of Scrooge .. .. )
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No, not trolling, just making a morbid joke. But after I posted it, and having re-read it, it wasn't in very good taste. My apologies.
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Pharma will try but no promises.... (Score:5, Interesting)
...I'm a pharma researcher at we have active programs trying to create next generation antibiotics, but the simple fact is evolution works. Eventually things will become resistant. These kinds of practices HAVE to stop because, frankly, it's getting harder to come up with new antibiotics. We have some new ideas, new biology is being uncovered, and different routes to attacking bugs are being explored. But the fact is that there will be fewer and fewer new classes of antibiotics rolling out. Pay the higher price for milk so that when you get strep throat you don't die from it. This clearly penny-wise pound-foolish thinking. A politician would do well to stand in the way of these practices under the guise of making sure that being able to protect our citizens and children from the ravages of infection wasn't just a "really nice period of humanity during the 20th and early 21st century before everything was resistant to everything." Think about someone sawing your kids leg off and then decide if milk is worth a buck / gallon more to you.
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Re:Pharma will try but no promises.... (Score:4, Informative)
Broad-spectrum == economical solution.
If each type of bacterial pathogen responded only to a narrow spectrum antibiotic, then when you got sick from a bacterial infection the lab would have to assay your blood to figure out which of the millions of bacteria in your system were actually causing the problem, then get you the right medicine. And the moment one of the pathogens mutates, the antibiotic would have less of an effect on it. So add up the expense of the lab work, the delays in treatment that would cause, the stock of custom pharmaceuticals that every pharmacy would have to carry, and it turns out that broad spectrum antibiotics are a whole lot cheaper and overall more effective.
Or to follow on to your suggestion of cocktails, what makes you suppose that any one cocktail wouldn't act exactly as a broad spectrum antibiotic? If a cocktail reduces the probability to P^2, (P^2)>0 is still true, so resistance is still possible.
The problems of resistance are not caused because the antibiotics are broad spectrum, but primarily by the proliferation of under-dosed environments. If you're going to use an antibiotic, it has to be present in a sufficient dose for an appropriate duration to actually kill all of the pathogens. A too-small dose, or a course of treatment that is ended early for any reason, will leave you with some bacteria that survived due to a low-level of resistance. Their offspring will thrive, and some of them will go on to offer higher resistance if your antibiotic treatment resumes.
If you're going to give it to cows, it should be done in response to a specific pathogen, and they should be given the full dose and course of treatment. Their waste should be kept away from other animals that might pick up the infection. But recognizing an infection in a cow, then isolating and treating it is expensive, so it doesn't get done as a first choice.
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They don't. Some do. There is a lot of research is specific bugs.
Why do you think it's only one or the other?
"then a cocktail containing two antibiotics should have a probability P^2
no. Not even close.
Not only is it economically good, it can be scientifically good becasue often one bug follows another, and it's better for the patient if it is stopped before it becomes a physical issue.
The largest contributor to resistance strain is people not finishing there antibiotic regime, or not taking proper care of t
Obligatory XKCD (Score:3)
Obligatory XKCD. It seems that Randall Munroe is the Nostradamus of our time, having predicted all future events in his humorous comic strip:
http://xkcd.com/1147/ [xkcd.com]
I blame it on BRAINS! (Score:2)
What with milk prices? (Score:2)
Drop Milk (Score:4, Interesting)
Just stop using cow's milk.
60% of the global population can't digest milk once they become adults.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2009-08-30-lactose-intolerance_N.htm [usatoday.com]
Health researchers at Harvard have even come out and said cows milk isn't a necessary part of a healthy diet, it is something that is TOLERATED in a healthy diet if people don't get too much:
http://beforewisdom.com/blog/milkandbones/experts-lose-the-cows-milk/ [beforewisdom.com]
Some dairy foods can have as much or more cholesterol and saturated fat as meat.
There are substitute milks made out of almonds, rice, hemp or soy in many supermarkets now. You can use those or fortified orange juice to get plenty of calcium without the digestive stress or the many health, digestive issues of cows milk
Re:Drop Milk (Score:5, Interesting)
No, 60% of the global population can't fully digest milk sugar (lactose), which only constitutes 5% of milk by weight.
Of those people, many tolerate the undigested lactose to varying degrees, tied to geographical distribution of certain genes.
The other components of milk (water, protein, fat, calcium) can be digested normally.
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What is the point of your post? Undigestable cow's milk sugar is still an integral part of milk for most of the world's adult population?
Why drink something that will give you digestive discomfort, take special pills to drink it or drink a processed version of it when there is no need?
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My point was that what you said was a hyperbole, just like the title of the article you linked. You made it appear that 60% of the world population can't drink milk, which is simply not true.
Adults keep producing lactase (the enzyme that breaks down lactose), but at lower levels than at infancy. This doesn't automatically cause lactose intolerance. Some people still produce high enough lactase levels, others can tolerate higher levels of undigested lactose.
Most of the discomfort occurs when certain bacteria
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So 60% of the world population has a milk allergy now? I don't think so...
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It always cracks me up to see someone up on their soap box about some health or nutrition issue and then start throwing "saturated fat" and "cholesterol".
You know that saturated fat and dietary cholesterol aren't bad for us, don't you? That the conventional wisdom on obesity and cardiovascular health relative to saturated fat and cholesterol is junk science?
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You know that saturated fat and dietary cholesterol are really bad for us, don't you? You know that declaring research that you don't agree with to be "junk" is bad science, right?
From the American Heart Association:
"There is overwhelming evidence that reductions in saturated fat, dietary cholesterol
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And yet you can do all the "right things" and still die within the margin of error of the "average lifespan". all that stress, all that effort, all that self denial, and for what? And others do all the wrong things and still live into their 90s. The stats are all over the place even once you take out the obvious stuff like smoking and eating nothing but bacon. My grandfather has had 5 heart attacks (1 minor, 2nd resulted in a shunt and pacemaker) surgery, he's nearly 90 and still going strong; turned out th
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Nuts and soy are common allergens. Hemp, well, nobody's going to fall for that one.
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Oh?
If milk was in the traditional diet of anyone but us Whites, you wouldn't be so quick to say it should be dropped. Protect everyone else, but fuck us, right?
Milk is perfectly natural and healthy (for people with the gene to digest it, i.e. mostly Whites), and has evidently been part of our diet for thousands of years.
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So? The people of Great Britain are generally NOT part of the 60% you talk about.
And the digestion issue you are talking about is mostly a problem dealing with lactose, which can be handled in a variety of ways.
The fact is that your argument is a non-sequiter in the context of this article.
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Hey, look at that, before wisdom takes an quote out of contexts it and spins it .. imagine my surprise~
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This anti-milk stuff is silly. Milk is healthy and a simple easy source of calcium for the majority of people, no specially modifed foods required. Milk is a simple easy source of food for a great many people. And milk is absolutely essential in a large number of hte foods we eat cause of this little thing called "cooking" which is really just chemistry, and the milk plays an integral part.
So get off you're soapbox and cut the hyperbull; just watch where you step, you were spewing manure from your face.
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Got Bacteria? (Score:2)
Ummm good....
Tell me again why "organic is overrated"? (Score:2)
I think, and have always thought, that the natural way of cultivating foods for human consumption is better. The business people strive to reduce loss and to increase production. But they forget to ask questions which has less to do with money such as environmental costs or anything to do with "long term" effects of short term gains.
Of course, as long as "everyone" is doing it, no one is responsible and of course if a few hold back from those practices, they will be swallowed up by those who do in the sho
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Becasue organic produces less yield and kills people.
You note that pasteurization kills this. As we have known, organic milk is a huge risk. I could go on with numbers and figures and facts, and studies, but you probably wouldn't understand them, so I will sum up:
A) Shit flows down hill.
B) the udder is under the ass.
Wow, I love that sentence.
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I completely understand what you mean.
We know how to handle the basic problems of food handling and processing. The problem is when we go too far beyond that. We challenge the forces of nature itself and when we do, we invariably lose.
We wash food, we pasteurize milk and cheese. Those are good to do. What's not good to do is drug our sources of food. It is well known that the over use of antibiotics breeds stronger bugs. Despite this knowledge they persist in the practice.
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Organic labeled milk is usually more pasturized and processed than non-organic labeled milk. The reason is that it is purchased less often so it has to have a longer self life than normal milk.
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I am the blessed forcus of a severely obsessive and uncontrolled mind. Even before the topic was responded to by people interested in it, we are flooded with commentary in MY HONOR!
You know, with mental illness as the sub-topic of the recent violent incident involving children the same age as my youngest son, news organizations are looking for the next great related story. Only recently, a newspaper had taken to "creating news" by publishing an interactive map of registered gun owners which stirred up bot
Just add a little Ammonia to the milk (Score:2)
Obvious solution. (Score:2)
As long as the milk is properly pasteurized, it poses no threat to consumers, but anyone working directly with the animals bears a small risk of infection.
Pasteurize the cows.
corporate crimes against humanity (Score:2)
This is what is wrong with corporations (and is also the fundamental flaw in american style libertarianism aka anarcho-capitalism) - the greedy bastards simply DO NOT GIVE A FUCK about the consequences of their actions, they just want a short-term boost to profits, no matter the cost to others.
They're not the ones who are going to be paying for it when people lose their limbs or organs or die horribly from MRSA, so it does not matter in the slightest.
We need a corporate death penalty for crimes like this -
fluoroquinolones for cattle (Score:2)
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Greener doesnt automatically mean better conditions for the animals. Nor does "buying green" mean intensive farming will diminish. The "green" products require even more land, use even more resources, and cost more to consumers. And for what? So you dont feel guilty? So you can say no antibiotics were used on your cow?
Overuse of AB's is and can be bad, but one reason they started using them generally instead of waiting for an animal to get sick first is it costs a lot to fix a sick cow. It's very la