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The case for an antibiotics tax

washingtonpost.com

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Re: The case for an antibiotics tax

#61

Post by ams6110 »

jswinghammer wrote: post #10

The basic problem is that one intervention is seeking to fix another. Crop subsidies are the reason why these antibiotics are so widely used. Farmers are encouraged to feed animals food they aren't meant to eat which makes them so sick they need antibiotics to stay alive long enough to be slaughtered. Just end those crop subsidies and let things take care of themselves. A few agribusinesses will be pissed but the res…

Better off in what way? Meat will get a lot more expensive, and it's already gone up a lot in the past couple of years.

Re: The case for an antibiotics tax

#62

Post by dllthomas »

ronaldx wrote: post #46
ericcumbee wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which the cost will be passed along to the consumer.

I'm sorry that you've been downvoted - because you are right. This is a tax on poor people that won't affect the majority of readers... it increases the minimum cost of producing meat. If we can't figure out high-production meat farming then eventually we're saying that meat should be something only for the wealthy.

If it's a choice between meat being something only for the wealthy and a prevalence of untreatable bacteriological infections, I'm going to go with the former.

Re: The case for an antibiotics tax

#63

Post by tippivenus »

There are two components to anti-biotic use that are taken together very harmful. The first as has been amply described by the author is the flat over use of anti-biotics where they are not needed. The second and perhaps more relevant human example is that humans tend not to finish their full course of anti-botics allowing resistant mutations to gain a greater foot hold. Other than long acting or implanted delivery mechanisms I am not sure that we can ever really ensure compliance with the full regimen in all patients.

Re: The case for an antibiotics tax

#64

Post by maerF0x0 »

fleitz wrote: post #40
maerF0x0 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or ban feeding an animal something that is not part of its "natural" diet. Then we have the fun of debating if cows naturally eat corn and soy. Chickens will be particularly fun because they historically ate the scraps from the humans (what we now call "compost" :P), they were the old form of food recycling.

I'm pretty sure human beings are not "supernatural" beings, therefore everything that we do including feeding cows stuff that makes them sick is "natural". Now if humans are "supernatural" than cows are also "supernatural" because they've been created by humans. Cows are a product of centuries of human genetic engineering.

You're attempting to be funny by giving the word "natural" too much thought. I stuck quotes around the term for people like you.

Natural being defined as something their bodies are "designed" (have fun with that one) to digest.

Re: The case for an antibiotics tax

#65

Post by m-photonic »

From what I've heard, in parts of Asia it's common for antibiotics to be sold over the counter, and a lot of the worst drug-resistant strains come out of the developing world. It's a much bigger deal than American agriculture, given the classes of antibiotics involved.

Re: The case for an antibiotics tax

#66

Post by jasomill »

breischl wrote: post #51
ataggart wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In the event that you're covered by any sort of public health insurance ... then the effects on your own health become a problem for everyone else. A vile argument. The idea that the state is empowered to curtail people's personal activities simply because the state chose to subsidize the personal health care costs of those activities should be anathema in a free and civilized society.

Once we've chosen to subsidize health care, then everyone has a financial interest in everyone else's behavior. I agree that it's a vile situation, but I tend to think it's a reason to avoid government-subsidized health care in the first place. Once we've got it, ignoring the financial consequences is just stupid.

This cuts both ways, though — with private insurance, insurers have a financial interest in focusing on current rather than lifetime expenditures, leading to both subpar outcomes in general and overestimation of costs related to lifespan-shortening behaviors like smoking.

With that said, high taxes on tobacco products in particular are primarily seen (by proponents and detractors) as means to reduce smoking for general, not exclusively economic, public health reasons.

Re: The case for an antibiotics tax

#67

Post by rwallace »

breischl wrote: post #44
dnautics wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sorry, generally speaking the point of a taxes is NOT to cover externalities, it is to control the populace and to fill the coffers of the state. Exactly what externalities do cigarette taxes cover? International trade duties? Taxes generally fail in the pursuit of correcting externalities because taxes are set by policy and committees are notoriously bad at pricing. The generally better way to cover externalities is…

I agree with your overall point. However, the implicit claim that there are no externalities to cigarette smoking is silly. There are clearly effects on everyone who might be nearby when you're smoking. In the event that you're covered by any sort of public health insurance, which is nearly certain in old age with Medicare and increasingly probable at younger ages, then the effects on your own health become a problem…

Actually, it turns out smokers cost the public health insurance system less, on average, than non-smokers do.

Re: The case for an antibiotics tax

#68

Post by rwallace »

ronaldx wrote: post #46
ericcumbee wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which the cost will be passed along to the consumer.

I'm sorry that you've been downvoted - because you are right. This is a tax on poor people that won't affect the majority of readers... it increases the minimum cost of producing meat. If we can't figure out high-production meat farming then eventually we're saying that meat should be something only for the wealthy.

Maybe the wealthy should stop eating meat too. Is it okay to torture animals for pleasure? If it is, then we should repeal the laws we currently have against it. But if it's wrong - as most people would say it is - then maybe we should stop behaving as though it becomes okay when it's done out of sight.

Re: The case for an antibiotics tax

#69

Post by rwallace »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #13

Too little, too late. There was a CDC report that the 'age of antibiotics' is over and there is little point in limiting their use now. Lets move the conversation on to something productive: what next?

Bollocks. The complete loss of effectiveness of antibiotics is not something that has already happened; they are still saving lives as I write this post. It is something that will happen if we don't change our behavior. Whether we change our behavior quickly enough has still to be decided.

Re: The case for an antibiotics tax

#70

Post by alexeisadeski3 »

dllthomas wrote: post #59
alexeisadeski3 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A tax won't solve anything, agreed, unless it's on the order of 10,000% or more. Restricting antibiotics (further than they are currently) may or may not help, but is certainly within the purview of a limited libertarian state. Restricting most (all?) other medications is not.

Antibiotics are used in commercial farming because they increase weight. The tax simply needs to be enough that (weight(antibioticked cow) - weight(non-antibioticked cow))*(price of beef) < (cost of antibiotics). Maybe that's "on the order of 10,000% or more", but I'd like to see numbers.

Antibiotics are overused outside of commercial farming too.
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