Pros And Cons Of Antibiotic Livestock

Then Tom continues education with a little education on the variety of antibiotics and how “crucial for treating serious human infections” (Philpott). Using a hotlink to a well-known credible organization like the “Food and Drug Administration” back up some of his statistics regarding over use of antibiotics in livestock operations. Tom continually notes

For this homework assignment, please watch the Frontline episodes “The Trouble with Antibiotics” and “Outbreak at NIH” that aired on October 14, 2014 and answer the following questions. Your answers must be given in complete sentences, typed, spell-checked and grammar-checked. Please spell-check and grammar-check your work. The episode is available at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/trouble-with-antibiotics/.

Presently, speculations have risen about the amount of antibiotics used in the livestock industry and the desire to consume antibiotic-free meats. What is not understood, however, is the USDA has been monitoring the amount of antimicrobial residue in meats for several years. If unsafe levels are detected the meat is not allowed to be sold for human consumption. Yet, fast food chains such as Subway and Chipotle are claiming to go completely antibiotic free within the next decade. The practicality of this becoming a reality is slim due to the need to control, treat, and prevent diseases. To truly understand the importance of the antibiotic usage in cattle it must first be understood what antibiotics are and the reasons they are used. Additionally, the use of vaccinations should be taken into account for the

In 1929, Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin. He found it was so effective on killing many common types of bacteria, that it became the most well known antibiotic. Penicillin became popular in every hospital, and was widely used to treat infections. Fleming won a Nobel Prize in medicine, and warned it is “not difficult to make microbes resistant to penicillin in the laboratory by exposing them to concentrations not sufficient to kill them” (Philpott). He knew the dangers with antibiotic resistant microbes, and knew they could be overused. Almost 50 years later, the problem he envisioned became a reality. Factory farms are doing harm to humans and the environment for their bad practices. The US Environmental Protection Agency should regulate

Antibiotic use in animals has recently captured the attention of various professionals as the blatant, adverse effects have become increasingly prevalent. Agricultural manufacturers carelessly inject livestock with antibiotics in order to maximize their weight gain by minimizing the amount of energy consumed in fighting illnesses. This broad use of antibiotics in food-producing animals has contributed to the emergence and distribution of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, resulting in either mild or fatal illnesses. To put the severity of this issue in perspective, legislators must realize that 1 in 5 antibiotic-resistant infections are caused by bacteria from food and animals. Although antibiotic use in animals is not the sole culprit of the

One environment where bacteria are regularly exposed to antibiotics is in large livestock operations, where producers very often treat their cows and other animals with drugs to prevent epidemics in the unsanitary and overcrowded conditions, which are common in the livestock industry. The simple reason for this is that in the short term it is cheaper to drug up the animals with antibiotics than to keep a clean living environment for them. Another big reason for these producers to drug up the animals is the fact that feeding antibiotics to the livestock makes for larger animals. The problem occurs when bacteria in these animals survive the bombardment of antibiotics, and some always do, the

Farm animals receive 30 times more antibiotics (mostly penicillins and tetracyclines) than people do. The drugs treat and prevent infections. But the main reason farmers like them is that they also make cows, hogs and chickens grow faster from each pound of feed. Resistant strains emerge just as they do in humans taking antibiotics--and remain in the animal's flesh even after it winds up in the meat case. (par. 8)

Antibiotics started being used for production purposes around the 1940s, farmers started to notice that when antibiotics were fed to their poultry, it promoted growth. This fast growth curve was especially liked by farmers because it increased the profits on their farms. From that point on, antibiotics were incorporated into livestock’s regular feed. In 1951, the FDA approved the first antibiotic that could be used for extra weight gain. It wasn’t until of 1969 that scientists started discovering antibiotic resistance due to the careless use by farmers. “When

For many years factory farms have been using antibiotics to promote faster growth and prevent disease that could sicken livestock held in confinements (Dillon). Even though they are putting antibiotics into the livestock when they are healthy they, instead of getting sick from it, actually grow faster letting the farmer produce more livestock in the same amount of time then they could without giving them antibiotics thus making the meat for the consumer cheaper with the same qualities as before.

The misuse of penicillin and other antibiotics however is causing the growing problem of antibiotic resistance in which seemingly harmless infections turn to be deadly and dangerous. Antibiotics are not only casually used as treatments for bacterial infections, but are also used in agriculture and veterinary medicine, creating controversy on the proper uses of antibiotics. As advancements in the medical fields proved to be beneficial for a short period of time, today the misuse of these innovations are creating more and more problems that have proven to be dangerous to the accustomed health of the global population. Antibiotics were not always considered to be a superficial medication and, in fact, have been naturally used for millions of years, like with ants and their symbiosis with antibiotic producing fungi. Humans do not fully realize the value that antibiotics have brought to the population and do not take measures to preserve their use. In contrast, humans take for advantage the natural benefits that is given to them to overly benefit themselves, such as while creating revenue through mass production despite warning from scientists. This selfish misuse leads to consequences in which the future will have to provide solutions for, and perhaps even follow in the ants’ footsteps.

This can lead to more complications such as further infection or sepsis. IV antibiotic therapy may result in phlebitis, extravasation injury, thrombosis, and bacteremia (NCBI, 2015). This is dangerous for a newborn, especially since she is just getting over an infection from her bowel perforation.

Not everyone knows what they are eating on a daily basis. Some believe what they read from the label on a package. While another will go with what a commercial that they heard on the television said. The truth of the matter is that you can not go around believing everything that someone has said. The only way that you can be certain as to what you are eating is if you actually know what has gone into the process of preparing that meal. There are many ways that someone can protect themselves and their family from getting these possibly life threatening illnesses that could harm not just your life, but also a future child that could possibly be consumed later on down the road. Throughout the past couple decades, researches have discovered the causes of consuming of hormones and antibiotics in both animals and humans.

Antibiotics are amongst the most important medical discoveries and their introduction represents a remarkable success story (Hedin, 2011). The term antibiotics literally means against life (Walsh, 2000). Thus antibiotics can be used against any microbe such as bacteria, viruses, fungi, and protozoa. However, some people use the term to only apply to bacteria, but in this paper, the more appropriate term will be used.

Nowadays, human discovers a cure for incurable diseases and we can see people who conquer an incurable disease such as cancer or dementia. In addition, major cosmetics companies are trying to develop effective skin treatment cosmetics for a cure to a skin disease. These kinds of experiments are done in a laboratory with animal-testing, medical worlds and many major cosmetics are claiming that with this kind of biological animal testing is the most effective ways to discover a cure for terminal illnesses or a preliminary inspection for find a side effect of new cosmetics. In addition, the world of medical insists that when doctors’ experiments for a long lifespan disease, they cannot do with long lifespan animals, and doctors doing their experiments with short lifespan animals such as mouse. With these animals, they can easily draw a conclusion for biological responsiveness. Despite of many negative sides, animal testing has positive sides in terms of medical and commercial aspects.

The overuse of antibiotics has been a problem for well over a decade. This misuse leads to many nonvisible problems arising within the human population. As the use of antibiotics increases, the number of antibiotic resistant bacteria also increases. When bacteria become resistant to an antibiotic, another antibiotic must be used to try and kill it and the cycle becomes vicious. Michael Martin, Sapna Thottathil, and Thomas Newman stated that antimicrobial resistance is, “an increasingly serious threat to global public health that requires action across all government sectors and society” (2409).