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‘Superbug’ scourge spreads as U.S. fails to track rising human toll

reuters.com

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Re: ‘Superbug’ scourge spreads as U.S. fails to track rising human toll

#81

Post by badminton1 »

pyre wrote: post #72
badminton1 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Farmers massively administer antibiotics so they can keep animals in crowded/unsanitary conditions. If antibiotics were administered properly that would severely affect their revenue.

Farmers do this for a number of reasons: - Constantly feeding livestock antibiotics makes them grow bigger. The mechanism for why this happens is not understood (but who cares because bigger livestock means more money). - It is costly to deal with an animal after it gets an infection rather than just being preventative. - Farmers are scared about diseases sweeping through their herds and causing issues where they are…

If I had to speculate I would say that they grow bigger since the animal requires to spend less energy in its immune system, resulting in a surplus of energy that is spent in growth.

Re: ‘Superbug’ scourge spreads as U.S. fails to track rising human toll

#82

Post by toss1 »

daveloyall wrote: post #64

Hello. I work for public health. My job is to support the computer systems that allow epidemiologists to track 'superbugs' (and regular ones). Deathcerts is an interesting dataset. It's not the only one. Even if death-by-MSRA isn't tracked, I assure you that MSRA itself is tracked. There's a specific class of lab test called "antibiotic susceptibilities". The results report includes a bunch of numbers that represent…

OK, so somebody's tracking it in secret, doing the 'antibiotic susceptibilities' tests and logging the results, and the state health dept receives the data, but the info is being kept from the patients' relatives and from the public in general?

This creates two obvious results. 1) suppression of legitimate claims from relatives, and 2) suppression of valid concern and pressure for govt action such as increased research funding.

How is this good?

Re: ‘Superbug’ scourge spreads as U.S. fails to track rising human toll

#83

Post by dv_dt »

codezero wrote: post #79
dv_dt wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was an article a few years ago about the fall of the medical autopsy rate. Because it's unclear how we fund it, and most people aren't in a position of knowledge to request it (or in a financial position to pay for it), the rates of autopsy to find a considered cause of death have been dropping precipitously.

We shelled out for a private company for an autopsy, but post-mortem, lots of things happen to the body that make identifying a source of an infection really hard – basically, it didn't tell us anything new :(

I'm so sorry for your loss, esp. in those uncertain circumstances.

Re: ‘Superbug’ scourge spreads as U.S. fails to track rising human toll

#84

Post by legulere »

ocschwar wrote: post #17

Bear in mind that in the US, our lovely republican party literally made it illegal to research where the superbugs are being bred. In the US, the problem is mostly pig and cattle feedlots that rely on antibiotics to keep the animals from being sickened but he crowding. Naturally, there is no proof that superbugs are coming out of the feedlots, because the feedlot owners do not allow any sort of sample collection by s…

Feeding antibiotics to livestock for faster growth is illegal in Germany, yet we feed around the same amount as the US: http://i.imgur.com/9ybmhwE.jpg

Re: ‘Superbug’ scourge spreads as U.S. fails to track rising human toll

#86

Post by codezero »

dv_dt wrote: post #83
codezero wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We shelled out for a private company for an autopsy, but post-mortem, lots of things happen to the body that make identifying a source of an infection really hard – basically, it didn't tell us anything new :(

I'm so sorry for your loss, esp. in those uncertain circumstances.

Thanks

Re: ‘Superbug’ scourge spreads as U.S. fails to track rising human toll

#87

Post by dv_dt »

toss1 wrote: post #82
daveloyall wrote: post #64

Hello. I work for public health. My job is to support the computer systems that allow epidemiologists to track 'superbugs' (and regular ones). Deathcerts is an interesting dataset. It's not the only one. Even if death-by-MSRA isn't tracked, I assure you that MSRA itself is tracked. There's a specific class of lab test called "antibiotic susceptibilities". The results report includes a bunch of numbers that represent…

OK, so somebody's tracking it in secret, doing the 'antibiotic susceptibilities' tests and logging the results, and the state health dept receives the data, but the info is being kept from the patients' relatives and from the public in general? This creates two obvious results. 1) suppression of legitimate claims from relatives, and 2) suppression of valid concern and pressure for govt action such as increased resear…

In particular, a potential patient might want to know MRSA case rates when selecting hospitals or other medical treatment facilities.

Re: ‘Superbug’ scourge spreads as U.S. fails to track rising human toll

#88

Post by pyre »

badminton1 wrote: post #81
pyre wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Farmers do this for a number of reasons: - Constantly feeding livestock antibiotics makes them grow bigger. The mechanism for why this happens is not understood (but who cares because bigger livestock means more money). - It is costly to deal with an animal after it gets an infection rather than just being preventative. - Farmers are scared about diseases sweeping through their herds and causing issues where they are…

If I had to speculate I would say that they grow bigger since the animal requires to spend less energy in its immune system, resulting in a surplus of energy that is spent in growth.

I'm sure there are multiple theories, but so far as I know the they are just that.

Re: ‘Superbug’ scourge spreads as U.S. fails to track rising human toll

#89

Post by jethro_tell »

dragonwriter wrote: post #68
jethro_tell wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I know it's not, we reap the benefits in lower food prices, but does beef really need to be cheap enough we can eat it 7 days a week? No it is. The total cost to society has to include healthcare costs as well. Saying, 'This lowers our cost at the dinner table' is only looking at part of the equation. Never mind that people don't eat dinner together which is a by product of having super cheap convenient packaged cal…

> It takes 2 calories of fossil fuel to make one calorie of food. We do this because it's still cost effective because of subsidies. I think "we do this because we can't eat fossil fuels no matter how many calories they provide, so trading total energy content for ability to serve as food is valuable, independent of subsidy" would be more accurate.

Partly, but we can grow food in a more efficient way. It's currently cost prohibitive because we use feed lots, and subsidies water and fuel for farming.

Re: ‘Superbug’ scourge spreads as U.S. fails to track rising human toll

#90

Post by dv_dt »

refurb wrote: post #60
badminton1 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Farmers massively administer antibiotics so they can keep animals in crowded/unsanitary conditions. If antibiotics were administered properly that would severely affect their revenue.

I think you have an unrealistic view of what mother nature is like. Wild animals (i.e. not in feed lots) succumb to disease, including bacteria infections all the time. Even with free-range animals, you'd have a ton of livestock dying (and suffering needlessly) if you never allowed antibiotics to be used.

I think the idea is to ban their use for purely profit reasons (though that leaves a loophole where medical care is claimed when the intent is just to increase growth of the animals for profit).
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