More animal antibiotic "guidelines" are not what we need

There's pretty much scientific unanimity that routine use of antibiotics on livestock — largely to promote larger body weight and overcome the health problems of cramming so many animals into too small a space — has had an increasingly dangerous degradation on those antibiotics' effectiveness when used in humans.  Bugs are developing immunity because of the overuse, and thus are immune when they infect people instead of animals.  The life cycle of antibiotic effectiveness has diminished significantly over the last century, and we're seeing increasing numbers of infection that are untreatable in humans — and therefore deadly.

The problem is, Big Agriculture has been unwilling to do anything about it, since reduced use would mean smaller product or increased costs on their part.  The FDA has had voluntary guidelines in effect for years on livestock companies, and they've had little effect.

So why shift over to voluntary guidelines for pharmaceutical companies?  While some may be willing to take the plunge and require their products have a prescription from a vet (assuming even that is a significant barrier), there's no requirement for any of the others to do the same and cut themselves off from a lucrative market.  Indeed, there's every financial reason not to. I expect this to have a minimal effect on the problem, and thus on the human death toll resulting from it.

Reshared post from +Al Jazeera America

In a bid to stem a surge in human resistance to certain antibiotics, the Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday announced new guidelines to try to phase out the overuse of antibiotics as a growth enhancer in livestock. http://alj.am/19D9Jyp