THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XIII, Issue # 241, October 2, 2011
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
NEW ANTIBIOTICS, OR NEEDLESS DEATHS
By Dennis T. Avery
NATURALLY OCCURRING RESISTANCE TO ANTIBIOTICS & THE CONTROVERSY BETWEEN PHYSICIANS & LIVESTOCK
PRODUCERS: WHY DOES ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE DEVELOP SO QUICKLY TO THE VERY NEWEST ANTIBIOTICS
PRESCRIBED FOR TREATMENT OF HUMAN PATIENTS? THE ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE WAS THERE BEFORE WE DISCOVERED
ANTIBIOTICS. HUMANS DID NOT INVENT THE ANTI-BACTERIAL WONDER DRUGS; WE HAVE SIMPLY ISOLATED
ANTI-BACTERIAL AGENTS THAT ALREADY EXISTED IN THE INFINITE, COMPETITIVE VARIETY OF NATURE.
MICROORGANISMS FIGURED OUT A WAY OF HOW TO GET AROUND ANTIBIOTICS BEFORE WE EVEN FIGURED OUT HOW TO
USE ANTIBIOLICS. OUR MEDICAL MARCHING ORDERS: KEEP RESEARCHING NEW ANTIBIOTICS TO STAY
AHEAD OF THE RESISTANCE. MESSAGE TO PUBLIC POLICYMAKERS: OUR PUBLIC POLICIES NEED A MUCH HIGHER
EMPHASIS ON WELCOMING ANTIBIOTIC RESEARCH. MEMO TO THE FOOD & DRUG ADMINISTRATION: SINCE
THERE IS NO DRUG THAT WILL WORK PERPETUALLY, LET'S MOVE FASTER WITH GOOD NEW ANTIBIOTICS.
FULL STORY:
For decades, physicians and livestock producers have been warring about the low-level feeding of antibiotics to hogs
and poultry. The meat producers have been putting small quantities of antibiotics into their poultry, hog, and cattle feeds
to prevent the development of animal disease epidemics. The better herd and flock health reduces death losses and
animal suffering — and also slashes their feed requirements.
However, the doctors asserted that resistance to new antibiotics was appearing too fast to be explained by the modest
levels of the prescriptions they write. Human lives are clearly at stake. The Centers for Disease Control and physicians’
associations demanded the end of farm antibiotic use
The farmers fired back: The physicians and public are too careless with their new medicines. Half the antibiotic
prescriptions are written for patients suffering from viral diseases; the antibiotics can’t cure these, but patients demand
pills. Then people quit taking the pills as soon as they feel better. That ignores the advice from their doctors and
druggists: “Take as directed until all these pills are gone.” Otherwise, the toughest bacteria will be left alive — and help
create resistance to the new wonder-drug.
As the farmers pointed out, however, most of the antibiotics they fed to livestock were not widely used in human
medicine. Why were farmers to blame when hospital resistance quickly developed to the very newest human-prescribed
antibiotics?
Some European countries even banned antibiotics in feed — with no apparent reduction in the development of antibiotic
resistance.
Finally, we seem to have found the answer to the riddle: the antibiotic resistance was there before we discovered
antibiotics. Remember, humans didn’t invent the anti-bacterial wonder drugs, we have simply isolated anti-bacterial
agents that already existed in the infinite, competitive variety of nature.
Researchers at McMaster University in Ontario have found that antibiotic resistance has been around for at least 30,000
years. A team led by the University’s Dr. Gerry Wright extracted bacterial DNA from soil frozen in the Yukon Territories
for at least 300 centuries. They found antibiotic resistance genes, along with the DNA of extinct mammoths and
three-toed sloths; and from plants not found in that locality since the Pleistocene era.
“Antibiotics are part of the natural ecology of the planet,” says Dr. Wright, “so when we think that we have developed
some drug that won’t be susceptible to resistance . . . we are completely kidding ourselves. . . . Microorganisms figured
out a way of how to get around [antibiotics] before we even figured out how to use them [antibiotics].”
That clearly gives us our medical marching orders: Keep researching new antibiotics to stay ahead of the resistance. Our
public policies need a much higher emphasis on welcoming antibiotic research. Memo to the Food and Drug
Administration: this research tells us there is no drug that will work perpetually. Let’s move faster with good new
antibiotics
It’s too bad the U.S. government has already spent all of our money on “stimulus” plans that didn’t work. Otherwise, we
could offer a big national prize for new antibiotics developed competitively by our pharmaceutical corporations.
SOURCE:
D’Cota, Wright, et al, “Antibiotic Resistance is ancient,” Nature, 477: p.547-561
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Agriculture, the Economy, & Human Health & Welfare:
Policy Issues Relating to Food Production & Consumption
Political Environmentalism Versus Human Progress & Prosperity:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
Science, Ethics, & Human Health:
Human Health & Public Policy
Political Economy -- Philosophies, Systems, & Public Policies:
Government, the Economy, & Economic Prosperity
Dennis T. Avery, a senior fellow for the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C., is an environmental economist. He was
formerly a senior analyst for the U.S. Department of State. He is co-author, with S. Fred Singer, of Unstoppable Global
Warming Every 1500 Years. Readers may write to Avery at P.O., Box 202 Churchville, Virginia, 2442; send him email at
cgfi@hughes.net; or visit us at www.cgfi.org
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Conservative & Free-Market Analysis of Government, Politics & Public Policy, Covering Political, Legal, Constitutional, Economic,
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Conservative Government Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity