Re: [biofuel] OT: 9-20-02 CBS 48 Hours Episode on Superbugs: Anti-Biotic-Resistant Bugs
- Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: biofuel@yahoogroups.com Sent: Saturday, September 21, 2002 19:47 Subject: Re: [biofuel] OT: 9-20-02 CBS 48 Hours Episode on Superbugs: Anti-Biotic-Resistant Bugs In this case, for example, I've *never heard mention of this issue* from the Bush Administration. Silence, in the face of such a possible catastrophe, is wrong. Now, some may say that they disagree with the science of the matter, and so do not think action is warranted. Let them say that. We have made a decent-enough case so that it should be publicly discussed. It has been a little known problem ( most cases in hospitals ) since the 70's ( I heard about it in the early to mid 80's), only in the last few years has it become more prevalent due in part that anti-biotics have become such a part of every day life in the last 5-10 years. Walk down the soap section in the supermarket and you will see at least half a dozen that claim 'anti-biotic' abilities, for that matter, look at the Lysol advertisements, they say out right anti-bacterial action - kills 99.9% of germs (what about that .1% that it does not kill?). Go to the first aid area of the same store, and you will see dozens of first aid cream's, gel's, and spray's that are anti-bacterial in nature. Modern farm practices such as crowded and unsanitary condition's contribute to disease ( think the middle ages and the plague ), so the farmers give medicine to prevent illness. Certain anti-biotics are also known to help animals gain weight faster so to get the fastest weight gain possible the animals are fed these anti-biotics by the pound. These same anti-biotics get to humans in the form of hamburgers, chicken, and pork. This has grown from almost nothing in the late 60's early 70's to a multi-million ( possibly billion ) dollar industry today. The CBS piece seemed to end with some revolutionary (claimed) Russian treatment. It was, you know, that little bit of obligatory uplifting stuff at the end, and I thought it took away the proper focus, but whatever. The emergency-level aspect of the case had been made ok in the first part of the piece. It is not revolutionary, it was under investigation in the U.S. before penicillin was discovered, when penicillin was discovered, the penicillin was first choice because it is not as time consuming to developed as the phages. Phages are very time consuming to develope, but, once they are, they will do the job better that anti-biotics. I'm not sure if it got down to what I would say is the principle of the matter: the failure to grasp that some of the principles of evolution would come into play and make many medical innovations subject to the ability of some enemy micro-organisms to evolve and change and adapt (over generations) to drugs designed to defeat them. In fact, the somewhat euphoric statements they seemed to make about the Russian treatment at the end (I was only 1/4 listening) reflected, perhaps, a *failure* to grasp the underlying principles, since what happens if the treatment is valid and we *repeat* the same over-use of the method? The way anti-biotics work, is they poison the bacteria. Think of the bacteria as ultra small rats, and the doctor as the exterminator, the doctor prescribes the anti-biotic which poisons the bacteria. Like rats, if a bacteria does not get a full dose of the poison, they become used to it, and it then doesn't work like it should even in higher doses. This should not be able to happen with phages, because they look upon bacteria as food. Think of the bacteria as micro passenger pigeons that were hunted to extinction and the phages as the human hunters of the pigeons. A phages lives (if you can call it that) to kill bacteria, they infect the bacteria with their own DNA then uses the bacteria own body to multiply new phages inside, and when the new phages burst out the bacteria is dead. Unlike the anti-biotic poison, the bacteria do not have a chance to build up an immunity. Greg H. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor -~-- Sell a Home for Top $ http://us.click.yahoo.com/RrPZMC/jTmEAA/ySSFAA/FGYolB/TM -~- Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Re: [biofuel] OT: 9-20-02 CBS 48 Hours Episode on Superbugs: Anti-Biotic-Resistant Bugs
Unlike the anti-biotic poison, the bacteria do not have a chance to build up an immunity. And if one ever does? Shall we simply assume that you're correct? That it's physically entirely completely impossible for any bacteria ever, by some mutation, to survive a phage attack? I'd like to see the Phage method used. But I'd like to see it used with some respect for the possibilities out there. As for the lack of widespread understanding of over-use of antibiotics, I'm sorry, but anyone who has taken and understood a high school biology course should have understood, when they looked at the misuse of antibiotics in agriculture, that this presented a possible human-life-threatening problem. I do not think the lack of mainstream discussion of this issue until recent years is sufficient excuse for the last few administrations to have completely blown off this issue. They could have made it a mainstream issue had they chosen. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor -~-- 4 DVDs Free +sp Join Now http://us.click.yahoo.com/pt6YBB/NXiEAA/ySSFAA/FGYolB/TM -~- Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Re: [biofuel] OT: 9-20-02 CBS 48 Hours Episode on Superbugs: Anti-Biotic-Resistant Bugs
As for the lack of widespread understanding of over-use of antibiotics, I'm sorry, but anyone who has taken and understood a high school biology course should have understood, when they looked at the misuse of antibiotics in agriculture, that this presented a possible human-life-threatening problem. I do not think the lack of mainstream discussion of this issue until recent years is sufficient excuse for the last few administrations to have completely blown off this issue. They could have made it a mainstream issue had they chosen. It has been discussed in the medical community for 50 years in all countries in the world. The politicians who normally have a high school degree, should have understood it. Many of the citizens that have a high school degree should have understood it. We often complain about big oil, but big pharmaceutical might even be worse. Political lobbying (read corruption) is quite forceful as we all know. Hakan Yahoo! Groups Sponsor -~-- Plan to Sell a Home? http://us.click.yahoo.com/J2SnNA/y.lEAA/ySSFAA/FGYolB/TM -~- Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Re: [biofuel] OT: 9-20-02 CBS 48 Hours Episode on Superbugs: Anti-Biotic-Resistant Bugs
- Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: biofuel@yahoogroups.com Sent: Saturday, September 21, 2002 19:47 Subject: Re: [biofuel] OT: 9-20-02 CBS 48 Hours Episode on Superbugs: Anti-Biotic-Resistant Bugs In this case, for example, I've *never heard mention of this issue* from the Bush Administration. Silence, in the face of such a possible catastrophe, is wrong. Now, some may say that they disagree with the science of the matter, and so do not think action is warranted. Let them say that. We have made a decent-enough case so that it should be publicly discussed. Agree. And if not, then you have to ask exactly whose interests a government really represents. In this case, that's rather abundantly clear. It has been a little known problem ( most cases in hospitals ) since the 70's ( I heard about it in the early to mid 80's), only in the last few years has it become more prevalent due in part that anti-biotics have become such a part of every day life in the last 5-10 years. Much longer than that. Thirty years ago doctors were putting teenage girls on more or less permanent antibiotic treatment for facial acne. I knew girls who took that stuff day in day out for years. Twenty-five years ago I had doctors prescribing antibiotics without even examining me - without even glancing at me. For a fungal ear infection, in one case. I wrote a news story about the dangers of antibiotic resistance on my first newspaper, 35 years ago (penicillin and syphillis). I'm not aware of antibiotic use having increased that much in the last 5-10 years. Walk down the soap section in the supermarket and you will see at least half a dozen that claim 'anti-biotic' abilities, for that matter, look at the Lysol advertisements, they say out right anti-bacterial action - kills 99.9% of germs (what about that .1% that it does not kill?). Go to the first aid area of the same store, and you will see dozens of first aid cream's, gel's, and spray's that are anti-bacterial in nature. I think most of those probably don't contain antibiotics, antibiotics are generally prescription drugs. Anti-bacterials are not necessarily antibiotics. Some non-prescription creams do contain low dosages of antibiotics, but most are just antiseptics. Even the antiobiotic creams are only for topical use, They probably play only a very small part in this problem, if any. Modern farm practices such as crowded and unsanitary condition's contribute to disease ( think the middle ages and the plague ) Not quite right, more complicated than that. Herding rural populations into city ghettoes to serve as factory fodder at the beginning of the industrial revolution is probably a better comparison - excepting that they weren't scientifically fed, which might have been a blessing, considering what that means in confinement livestock operations. (And indeed not only livestock.) , so the farmers give medicine to prevent illness. Certain anti-biotics are also known to help animals gain weight faster so to get the fastest weight gain possible the animals are fed these anti-biotics by the pound. Did you read my previous post? The February 2000 issue of the University of Florida's Poultry Letter reported that the poultry industry in Denmark, which had voluntarily stopped using all antibiotics in feeds in 1998, had found, nationwide, raising more than 100 million birds a year, that there had been no major outbreaks of disease, and that although the birds had eaten more food, they weighed more at slaughter -- and were cheaper to produce. There was no need for the antibiotics in the first place. http://journeytoforever.org/fyi_previous2.html#0405 These same anti-biotics get to humans in the form of hamburgers, chicken, and pork. This has grown from almost nothing in the late 60's early 70's to a multi-million ( possibly billion ) dollar industry today. In 1969, a British panel called the Swann Committee recommended that antibiotics used to treat people or drugs closely related to medical antibiotics -- which could produce resistant bacteria -- should not be given to animals. The CBS piece seemed to end with some revolutionary (claimed) Russian treatment. It was, you know, that little bit of obligatory uplifting stuff at the end, and I thought it took away the proper focus, but whatever. The emergency-level aspect of the case had been made ok in the first part of the piece. It is not revolutionary, it was under investigation in the U.S. before penicillin was discovered, when penicillin was discovered, the penicillin was first choice because it is not as time consuming to developed as the phages. Phages are very time consuming to develope, but, once they are, they will do the job better that anti-biotics. Antibiotics did an adequate job. They've long been misused by the medical profession, so intent on treating the symptom rather than the cause, and, more and more, mere middle-men
Re: [biofuel] OT: 9-20-02 CBS 48 Hours Episode on Superbugs: Anti-Biotic-Resistant Bugs
As for the lack of widespread understanding of over-use of antibiotics, I'm sorry, but anyone who has taken and understood a high school biology course should have understood, when they looked at the misuse of antibiotics in agriculture, that this presented a possible human-life-threatening problem. I do not think the lack of mainstream discussion of this issue until recent years is sufficient excuse for the last few administrations to have completely blown off this issue. They could have made it a mainstream issue had they chosen. It has been discussed in the medical community for 50 years in all countries in the world. The politicians who normally have a high school degree, should have understood it. Many of the citizens that have a high school degree should have understood it. We often complain about big oil, but big pharmaceutical might even be worse. Political lobbying (read corruption) is quite forceful as we all know. One of the things we seem to do here in the States (and around the world, and throughout history, for all I know) is that we watch our politicians and wait for them to make comments or take actions and then we criticize them when we think they've made a definable error. But I think a more mature way, and potentially more productive for all concerned, would be that we should define for ourselves what we think would be a good job and then ask ourselves if the person in question is doing it. As voters we are in effect hiring someone to do a job when we vote for them. Sure, it's a sloppy thing, because as part of a huge hiring committee, it's a bit inefficient for each one of us to think that we should spend hundreds of man-hours studying the job and what we think should be done with it, but that's the way it seems to work. And, although we are the boss of the people we elect, or at least a member of their board of advisors, we are also sort of their underling, insofar as any given citizen is not in the position of huge power of the President. 1. Anyway, my point is that by taking the approach of developing expectations for what our elected officials (and the many paid underlings that we allow them in order to aide them in doing their jobs) should be concerned with, we can hold them responsible for doing things such as identifying important issues and advising action on them, encouraging discussion, using the bullypulpit of the Presidency and other elected offices to bring attention to important issues, and ultimately proposing laws and acting on those laws. 2. Also, from the underling point of view, we can offer our best most-intelligent attempts at criticism, rather than mean petty nonsense that is a waste of everyone's time. I think of it this way: when one works for a large organization, often there are various discussions as to what one's higher-ups should be doing. And while some may engage in intelligent criticism, some may not. Some may offer non-stop nonsensical waste-of-time back-seat-driving criticism of the CEO, forgetting that it might be quite difficult to do the CEO's job, and that, short of perfect-judgment, criticisms should be offered with respect and relevancy, and praise should be meted out as well where deserved, if one is to presume to judge the job. In the States, we sometimes have chosen, over at least the last couple of decades, the lesser of these roads, reacting to supposedly criticizable actions on the part of our elected officials, and offering less-than-balanced over-simplified backseat criticisms. An obvious low point would be the criticisms of President Clinton's personal life, if nothing else, took time away (during his eight years in office) from the so many more cogent criticisms of his administration that could have, and should have, been offered during that time. (I'm not a fan of his, but one thing I do like to say sometimes is that he was denied the valuable cogent criticisms that I think a President can reasonably expect from an American populace if it is on the ball.) One of the issues we should define and say this should be discussed is this issue of overuse and misuse of antibiotics. It is too late, perhaps, but better late than never. Another example of such an issue was, of course, his ineffectual and inadequate (some would say: disgustingly so) response to terrorism. I also think that, to this day, our tendency to fail to explain and make our case properly on both the world and domestic stage is a serious deficiency of our foreign policy. President Clinton might whine that his hands were tied by all manner of concerns, but if he'd bothered to make his case better, he might have been authhorized to combat terrorism more effectively. Another example, amongst many more, has been the failure to take sufficient action on the issue of our energy dependencies and their effect on our strategic situation. This issue languished in silence for decades while we discussed this or that Presidential scandal (could
Re: [biofuel] OT: 9-20-02 CBS 48 Hours Episode on Superbugs: Anti-Biotic-Resistant Bugs
- Original Message - From: Greg and April [EMAIL PROTECTED] snip It has been a little known problem ( most cases in hospitals ) since the 70's ( I heard about it in the early to mid 80's), only in the last few years has it become more prevalent due in part that anti-biotics have become such a part of every day life in the last 5-10 years. One of the biggest problems aside from overprescription of antibiotics is miss-use of antibiotics by those to whom they are prescribed. An example here is the failure to complete a course of prescribed antibiotics. Patient feels better so stops taking antibiotics because of side effects. Bacterial infection not completely killed off at this stage so conditions favour the growth of resistant strains. I remember thjat there was concern for this very reason in America in the 70s/80s?. Tuberculosis was rapidly outstripping antibiotic development. Walk down the soap section in the supermarket and you will see at least half a dozen that claim 'anti-biotic' abilities, for that matter, look at the Lysol advertisements, they say out right anti-bacterial action - kills 99.9% of germs (what about that .1% that it does not kill?). Go to the first aid area of the same store, and you will see dozens of first aid cream's, gel's, and spray's that are anti-bacterial in nature. Anti-bacterial is quite different to antibiotic. Antibiotics inhibit the growth of bacteria, anti-bacterial kill/poison the bacteria and probably us too if we ingested them. My Doctor tells the story of his father (also a Doctor) stationed in New Guinea during WW2. Air crews were required to be at readiness in their bombers for long hours. Blazing hot sun, cramped badly ventilated planes, plenty of perspiration by crews. The fastidious ones showered many times a day, looking down on those who showered once a day. Guess which group suffered the most with skin infections etc. My Doc suggests avoiding medicated anti-bacterial soap for the same reason. Modern farm practices such as crowded and unsanitary condition's contribute to disease ( think the middle ages and the plague ), so the farmers give medicine to prevent illness. Certain anti-biotics are also known to help animals gain weight faster so to get the fastest weight gain possible the animals are fed these anti-biotics by the pound. These same anti-biotics get to humans in the form of hamburgers, chicken, and pork. This has grown from almost nothing in the late 60's early 70's to a multi-million ( possibly billion ) dollar industry today. As with all aspects of nature things are often quite complex especially when uninformed man meddles. Usually for one of the three great destroyers of rational thinking and action.IMHO Economics, Politics and Religion. Worked for many years in a Dairy Foods processing factory Lab. At one stage there was much noise made about lysteria bacteria. Blamed for spontaneous abortion I think. Very sensitive issue, so regulatory authority, set standards, comming down heavily on any factory found to test positive. Ironic thing was that lysteria is a fairly sensitive bacteria and its growth is suppressed by the normal bacterial mix present. However make everything squeaky clean and the listeria has free reign to flourish. Much the same as when herbicide is sprayed, what grows back first, weeds. Some of the cleanest factories were under threat of closure. snip The way anti-biotics work, is they poison the bacteria. See above, inhibit the growth of the bacteria.. Think of the bacteria as ultra small rats, and the doctor as the exterminator, the doctor prescribes the anti-biotic which poisons the bacteria. Like rats, if a bacteria does not get a full dose of the poison, they become used to it, and it then doesn't work like it should even in higher doses. This should not be able to happen with phages, because they look upon bacteria as food. Think of the bacteria as micro passenger pigeons that were hunted to extinction and the phages as the human hunters of the pigeons. A phages lives (if you can call it that) to kill bacteria, they infect the bacteria with their own DNA then uses the bacteria own body to multiply new phages inside, and when the new phages burst out the bacteria is dead. Unlike the anti-biotic poison, the bacteria do not have a chance to build up an immunity. Used to have to work around Phages in the cheese manufacturing section of the Dairy Factory. They tend to build up. If you used the same culture for subsequent batches of cheese there would come a time when you would get a dead vat. Either cultures are rotated so that subsequent ones are not affected by the phages specific to the previous or a mix of culture strains is used, if one strain gets knocked out the others do the job. Dead vats can also be caused by residual antibiotics from treatment of cows suffering from mastitis using antibiotics, antibiotic is usually stained blue. This shows up in milk, alerts
Re: [biofuel] OT: 9-20-02 CBS 48 Hours Episode on Superbugs: Anti-Biotic-Resistant Bugs
Hello Hakan Coming from a family with many physicians, I have heard warnings about this for more than 40 years now. The practises are similar to what I am dealing with for energy saving in buildings. 40 years ago, it was a minority of physicians, among them my father, that was very upset with the unqualified prescriptions of antibiotics. They pointed out that this was a last resort medicine and over prescriptions could lead to disasters at the end. For over 40 years, the development of new and stronger antibiotics have just kept the effects of over subscriptions at bay. This with large development costs and large incomes for the pharmaceutical industry. It is a known and discussed problem for more than 50 years now. The physician are still careless about prescriptions and the more responsible ones are somewhat more but still a minority. That's much my view of it too. That it hasn't been used as a last-resort medicine but too often as a first resort may have had other effects apart from rendering the antibiotics useless, possibly including adverse effects on the immune system. Systemic candida albicans infection is certainly one such, a rising scourge in the industrialized countries, and primarily caused by over-use of antibiotics and steroids (which could be why the medical profession as a whole is in denial about it, with more and more exceptions). There are several such chronic ailments, CFS, ME, others, and they have a lot in common with candida, and could have the same real cause, or partly so. The practices of over use of antibiotics in agriculture, was a very interesting and profitable and irresistible for the pharmaceutical companies. It did not matter that it was an enormous waste of a finite resource. You could say the same thing about organized crime with drug running and extortion. We at least identify organized crime as an enemy of society and make an attempt to control it, but we make no such attempt with corporate criminals, though they're a much worse scourge. A lot of people, a rapidly growing number these days, see a grey area between government, big business and organized crime, with no clear line of distinction. But too many are still mesmerized by the disinfotainment industry. If humanity loses the effectiveness of antibiotics, AIDS will be a minor problem in comparison. The pharmaceutical industry have their version of hydrogen and fuel cell technology, it is called gene manipulation. The insecurity of future is not stopping the destruction of antibiotics, because it would mean more restrictive use and less income for pharmaceutical industry. It is a very strong case for starting an Antibiotics Saving Now campaign, but Energy Saving Now is already on the limit of what I can afford and my medical competence is not sufficient enough. Hakan, close your eyes and throw a dart, you're almost bound to hit something under threat that deserves saving, or that HAS to be saved. And always the same culprits. Just do what you're doing, you can't do everything. If the gene manipulation efforts fails and antibiotics becomes much less effective, it will have very positive effects on energy saving. Maybe my efforts are in vein and the pharmaceutical industry will maybe create much larger impact on energy saving by reduction of users. Which probably wouldn't bother the pharmaceutical corporations much, as long as the one out of 10 remaining had the buying power of the other nine as well, and were a sufficiently exploitable resource. They might even prefer it, advertising rates would go down after all. Gerber knew that what it was doing in Guatemala would kill babies. http://www.rachel.org/bulletin/bulletin.cfm?Issue_ID=1646bulletin_ID=48 Nestle also knew that, and it didn't stop them. A Philip Morris study found the early deaths of smokers have positive effects for society that more than counteract the medical costs of treating smoking induced cancer and other diseases. It's firmly established that the chemicals industry sees the bottom line as much more important than collateral deaths from its products or processes. A one-dollar part in the Ford Pinto would have saved at least 500 deaths, Ford knew those deaths were in the offing, but refused to fit the part. Union Carbide, and now Dow, didn't care about the thousands killed and hundreds of thousands of lives ruined at Bhopal, just to save a few bucks on running costs. Dow even suggested some of the truly miserly pay-off to the victims should be used to clean up the horrendous environmental mess they left there, a time-bomb ticking away. They don't care. Why would they care? If it makes bottom-line sense, then it makes sense - their only purpose is to maximise profits. They're not human beings, they're corporations. They've now got more human rights than humans have, but they don't have any human feelings. Would a human think it good and wise to lace fertilizer with hazardous wastes, heavy metals,
Re: [biofuel] OT: 9-20-02 CBS 48 Hours Episode on Superbugs: Anti-Biotic-Resistant Bugs
Keith, Somebody told me the we should not discuss prostitutes and that you might be upset. But we are always coming back to them, not the female version that at least are honest, but the corporate/political ugly one the live on deception and make a lot more money. Hakan At 01:28 AM 9/23/2002 +0900, you wrote: Hello Hakan Coming from a family with many physicians, I have heard warnings about this for more than 40 years now. The practises are similar to what I am dealing with for energy saving in buildings. 40 years ago, it was a minority of physicians, among them my father, that was very upset with the unqualified prescriptions of antibiotics. They pointed out that this was a last resort medicine and over prescriptions could lead to disasters at the end. For over 40 years, the development of new and stronger antibiotics have just kept the effects of over subscriptions at bay. This with large development costs and large incomes for the pharmaceutical industry. It is a known and discussed problem for more than 50 years now. The physician are still careless about prescriptions and the more responsible ones are somewhat more but still a minority. That's much my view of it too. That it hasn't been used as a last-resort medicine but too often as a first resort may have had other effects apart from rendering the antibiotics useless, possibly including adverse effects on the immune system. Systemic candida albicans infection is certainly one such, a rising scourge in the industrialized countries, and primarily caused by over-use of antibiotics and steroids (which could be why the medical profession as a whole is in denial about it, with more and more exceptions). There are several such chronic ailments, CFS, ME, others, and they have a lot in common with candida, and could have the same real cause, or partly so. The practices of over use of antibiotics in agriculture, was a very interesting and profitable and irresistible for the pharmaceutical companies. It did not matter that it was an enormous waste of a finite resource. You could say the same thing about organized crime with drug running and extortion. We at least identify organized crime as an enemy of society and make an attempt to control it, but we make no such attempt with corporate criminals, though they're a much worse scourge. A lot of people, a rapidly growing number these days, see a grey area between government, big business and organized crime, with no clear line of distinction. But too many are still mesmerized by the disinfotainment industry. If humanity loses the effectiveness of antibiotics, AIDS will be a minor problem in comparison. The pharmaceutical industry have their version of hydrogen and fuel cell technology, it is called gene manipulation. The insecurity of future is not stopping the destruction of antibiotics, because it would mean more restrictive use and less income for pharmaceutical industry. It is a very strong case for starting an Antibiotics Saving Now campaign, but Energy Saving Now is already on the limit of what I can afford and my medical competence is not sufficient enough. Hakan, close your eyes and throw a dart, you're almost bound to hit something under threat that deserves saving, or that HAS to be saved. And always the same culprits. Just do what you're doing, you can't do everything. If the gene manipulation efforts fails and antibiotics becomes much less effective, it will have very positive effects on energy saving. Maybe my efforts are in vein and the pharmaceutical industry will maybe create much larger impact on energy saving by reduction of users. Which probably wouldn't bother the pharmaceutical corporations much, as long as the one out of 10 remaining had the buying power of the other nine as well, and were a sufficiently exploitable resource. They might even prefer it, advertising rates would go down after all. Gerber knew that what it was doing in Guatemala would kill babies. http://www.rachel.org/bulletin/bulletin.cfm?Issue_ID=1646bulletin_ID=48 Nestle also knew that, and it didn't stop them. A Philip Morris study found the early deaths of smokers have positive effects for society that more than counteract the medical costs of treating smoking induced cancer and other diseases. It's firmly established that the chemicals industry sees the bottom line as much more important than collateral deaths from its products or processes. A one-dollar part in the Ford Pinto would have saved at least 500 deaths, Ford knew those deaths were in the offing, but refused to fit the part. Union Carbide, and now Dow, didn't care about the thousands killed and hundreds of thousands of lives ruined at Bhopal, just to save a few bucks on running costs. Dow even suggested some of the truly miserly pay-off to the victims should be used to clean up the horrendous environmental mess they left there, a time-bomb ticking away. They don't care. Why would they care? If it makes bottom-line
Re: [biofuel] OT: 9-20-02 CBS 48 Hours Episode on Superbugs: Anti-Biotic-Resistant Bugs
Keith, Somebody told me the we should not discuss prostitutes and that you might be upset. I've never done business with one, Hakan, but I've had a few friends who were prostitutes, especially when I was a crime reporter. Well, you're supposed to get your information from the police, but I found the criminals were sometimes a lot more honest. Anyway, no, I definitely won't be upset. :-) But we are always coming back to them, not the female version that at least are honest, Yes, and very clear-sighted about a quite lot of things more respectable people prefer to be confused about. It's true about the hearts of gold story too, or it can be. Not long ago a couple of Hong Kong friends went to Macau, and visited a prostitute there. The one took the other there, having learnt that the poor guy hadn't had any sex for 12 years! The prostitute was really nice to him (his pal told her the story). Then, being a couple of mugs, they went and lost all their money in a casino, didn't have enough for the ticket back to Hong Kong. So they went back to the prostitute, and she gave them their money back! Don't know what the pimp would have said about that. (Pimps are a different matter.) but the corporate/political ugly one the live on deception and make a lot more money. We do, don't we. It's the problem though, and it affects all these issues that affect biofuels. Perhaps even more of a problem, or maybe THE problem, is the $35 billion a year the PR industry in the US (never mind everywhere else) spends on giving all the little emperor-prostitutes a new suit of clothes whenever their pinstripes get a bit threadbare and transparent (ie all the time). Keith Hakan Yahoo! Groups Sponsor -~-- Sell a Home for Top $ http://us.click.yahoo.com/RrPZMC/jTmEAA/ySSFAA/FGYolB/TM -~- Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Re: [biofuel] OT: 9-20-02 CBS 48 Hours Episode on Superbugs: Anti-Biotic-Resistant Bugs
Coming from a family with many physicians, I have heard warnings about this for more than 40 years now. The practises are similar to what I am dealing with for energy saving in buildings. 40 years ago, it was a minority of physicians, among them my father, that was very upset with the unqualified prescriptions of antibiotics. They pointed out that this was a last resort medicine and over prescriptions could lead to disasters at the end. For over 40 years, the development of new and stronger antibiotics have just kept the effects of over subscriptions at bay. This with large development costs and large incomes for the pharmaceutical industry. It is a known and discussed problem for more than 50 years now. The physician are still careless about prescriptions and the more responsible ones are somewhat more but still a minority. The practices of over use of antibiotics in agriculture, was a very interesting and profitable and irresistible for the pharmaceutical companies. It did not matter that it was an enormous waste of a finite resource. If humanity loses the effectiveness of antibiotics, AIDS will be a minor problem in comparison. The pharmaceutical industry have their version of hydrogen and fuel cell technology, it is called gene manipulation. The insecurity of future is not stopping the destruction of antibiotics, because it would mean more restrictive use and less income for pharmaceutical industry. It is a very strong case for starting an Antibiotics Saving Now campaign, but Energy Saving Now is already on the limit of what I can afford and my medical competence is not sufficient enough. If the gene manipulation efforts fails and antibiotics becomes much less effective, it will have very positive effects on energy saving. Maybe my efforts are in vein and the pharmaceutical industry will maybe create much larger impact on energy saving by reduction of users. Hakan At 01:53 PM 9/21/2002 +0900, you wrote: Extensive Episode. I saw some of it, and they did touch on the role of agriculture in the 5 decades of overuse of antibiotics. One person quoted as saying something in the range of 70% of antibiotics are used in agriculture, but am not sure. We've talked about this here before, so I thought I'd mention it. This wanton relatively needless use of such valuable drugs for supposed agriculture benefit, knowing the consequences *might* be catastrophic to all life on Earth, is something that concerns me, and the damage seems partly done. Partly done, certainly, and the resistant bugs are killing people right now, but I don't think it's a lost cause yet. http://journeytoforever.org/fyi_previous2.html#0405http://journeytoforever.org/fyi_previous2.html#0405 FYI - News that's not in the news Antibiotic use In 1969, a British panel called the Swann Committee recommended that antibiotics used to treat people or drugs closely related to medical antibiotics -- which could produce resistant bacteria -- should not be given to animals. The World Health Organization reinforced the recommendations in 1997 -- 28 years later. To take one antibiotic: Farmers have been using an estimated 125 metric tons of the antibiotic avoparcin a year as a growth promoter in chicken feed. Avoparcin is very similar to vancomycin, a powerful antibiotic reserved for serious illness in people who are not responding to other antibiotics. In Denmark, for instance, in 1994, 24 kilograms of vancomycin were used for human therapy, whereas 24,000 kg of avoparcin were used in animal feed. In 1997 Japanese scientists discovered that Staphylococcus aureus bacteria had developed resistance to vancomycin, the last line of defence against this killer disease, which had previously developed resistance to penicillin, methicillin and cloxacillin. Deaths have since been reported in several parts of the world when doctors were unable to treat the disease. ProMED reported in December 1999 that the use of avoparcin in poultry feed had finally been discontinued wordwide following pressure by governments and doctors on the manufacturer, Roche Vitamins. The February 2000 issue of the University of Florida's Poultry Letter reported that the poultry industry in Denmark, which had voluntarily stopped using all antibiotics in feeds in 1998, had found, nationwide, raising more than 100 million birds a year, that there had been no major outbreaks of disease, and that although the birds had eaten more food, they weighed more at slaughter -- and were cheaper to produce. There was no need for the antibiotics in the first place. In 1999, a major British food chain, Marks and Spencer, refused to purchase chickens which had been grown using antibiotics for growth promotion. In December 1999, Britain's biggest producer, Grampian Country Food Group, which supplies 200 million broiler chickens a year, announced it would stop using antibiotics as growth promoters, in response to consumer demands for healthier eating.
Re: [biofuel] OT: 9-20-02 CBS 48 Hours Episode on Superbugs: Anti-Biotic-Resistant Bugs
If humanity loses the effectiveness of antibiotics, AIDS will be a minor problem in comparison. That appears to be what we are concerned about here in this forum. If only the powers-that-be cared. I think that some of us try very hard not to engage in the shallow one-sided criticisms of Presidential Administrations that so many engage in. Some of us see that we owe each President the benefit of balanced intelligent criticism and not nonsense. That said, I was thinking today, what does one say in response to an Administration that one thinks is doing a genuinely terrible job on any given issue? I actually had a different issue on my mind. But I think the answer I partly got from myself might be useful here. It is, I think, that quite often my argument with a Politician's point of view is with what he *isn't* saying or doing, not with what he's saying or doing. In this case, for example, I've *never heard mention of this issue* from the Bush Administration. Silence, in the face of such a possible catastrophe, is wrong. Now, some may say that they disagree with the science of the matter, and so do not think action is warranted. Let them say that. We have made a decent-enough case so that it should be publicly discussed. The CBS piece seemed to end with some revolutionary (claimed) Russian treatment. It was, you know, that little bit of obligatory uplifting stuff at the end, and I thought it took away the proper focus, but whatever. The emergency-level aspect of the case had been made ok in the first part of the piece. I'm not sure if it got down to what I would say is the principle of the matter: the failure to grasp that some of the principles of evolution would come into play and make many medical innovations subject to the ability of some enemy micro-organisms to evolve and change and adapt (over generations) to drugs designed to defeat them. In fact, the somewhat euphoric statements they seemed to make about the Russian treatment at the end (I was only 1/4 listening) reflected, perhaps, a *failure* to grasp the underlying principles, since what happens if the treatment is valid and we *repeat* the same over-use of the method? So, that's part of why I didn't want to listen. They just didn't want to get it. But at that point I wasn't really listening. Who needs Terrorists when we're working diligently, legally, to create superbugs to kill so many here in our own country? I've generally despised the X-Files. As a show about a biological UFO whatever threat sort of conspiracy, I thought it was insulting and a waste of time, and the never-ending nonsense between Reason and surreality was meant to be an attack on Reason and Objectivity in my opinion. But it also distracted attention from the fact that, here and there, there are occassionally conspiracies (sometimes of stupidity) that are as threatening, or more threatening, than anything dreamed up by Mulder or Art Bell or whoever. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor -~-- Plan to Sell a Home? http://us.click.yahoo.com/J2SnNA/y.lEAA/ySSFAA/FGYolB/TM -~- Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[biofuel] OT: 9-20-02 CBS 48 Hours Episode on Superbugs: Anti-Biotic-Resistant Bugs
Extensive Episode. I saw some of it, and they did touch on the role of agriculture in the 5 decades of overuse of antibiotics. One person quoted as saying something in the range of 70% of antibiotics are used in agriculture, but am not sure. We've talked about this here before, so I thought I'd mention it. This wanton relatively needless use of such valuable drugs for supposed agriculture benefit, knowing the consequences *might* be catastrophic to all life on Earth, is something that concerns me, and the damage seems partly done. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor -~-- Plan to Sell a Home? http://us.click.yahoo.com/J2SnNA/y.lEAA/ySSFAA/FGYolB/TM -~- Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Re: [biofuel] OT: 9-20-02 CBS 48 Hours Episode on Superbugs: Anti-Biotic-Resistant Bugs
Extensive Episode. I saw some of it, and they did touch on the role of agriculture in the 5 decades of overuse of antibiotics. One person quoted as saying something in the range of 70% of antibiotics are used in agriculture, but am not sure. We've talked about this here before, so I thought I'd mention it. This wanton relatively needless use of such valuable drugs for supposed agriculture benefit, knowing the consequences *might* be catastrophic to all life on Earth, is something that concerns me, and the damage seems partly done. Partly done, certainly, and the resistant bugs are killing people right now, but I don't think it's a lost cause yet. http://journeytoforever.org/fyi_previous2.html#0405 FYI - News that's not in the news Antibiotic use In 1969, a British panel called the Swann Committee recommended that antibiotics used to treat people or drugs closely related to medical antibiotics -- which could produce resistant bacteria -- should not be given to animals. The World Health Organization reinforced the recommendations in 1997 -- 28 years later. To take one antibiotic: Farmers have been using an estimated 125 metric tons of the antibiotic avoparcin a year as a growth promoter in chicken feed. Avoparcin is very similar to vancomycin, a powerful antibiotic reserved for serious illness in people who are not responding to other antibiotics. In Denmark, for instance, in 1994, 24 kilograms of vancomycin were used for human therapy, whereas 24,000 kg of avoparcin were used in animal feed. In 1997 Japanese scientists discovered that Staphylococcus aureus bacteria had developed resistance to vancomycin, the last line of defence against this killer disease, which had previously developed resistance to penicillin, methicillin and cloxacillin. Deaths have since been reported in several parts of the world when doctors were unable to treat the disease. ProMED reported in December 1999 that the use of avoparcin in poultry feed had finally been discontinued wordwide following pressure by governments and doctors on the manufacturer, Roche Vitamins. The February 2000 issue of the University of Florida's Poultry Letter reported that the poultry industry in Denmark, which had voluntarily stopped using all antibiotics in feeds in 1998, had found, nationwide, raising more than 100 million birds a year, that there had been no major outbreaks of disease, and that although the birds had eaten more food, they weighed more at slaughter -- and were cheaper to produce. There was no need for the antibiotics in the first place. In 1999, a major British food chain, Marks and Spencer, refused to purchase chickens which had been grown using antibiotics for growth promotion. In December 1999, Britain's biggest producer, Grampian Country Food Group, which supplies 200 million broiler chickens a year, announced it would stop using antibiotics as growth promoters, in response to consumer demands for healthier eating. Updates FDA to Ban 2 Poultry Antibiotics It Says Make Germs Drug-Resistant, Washington Post, October 27, 2000: The Food and Drug Administration announced plans yesterday to ban two antibiotics widely used by poultry farmers to keep chickens and turkeys healthy, saying the practice increases the danger that humans will become infected with germs that resist treatment. Bayer Refuses To Recall Poultry Antibiotic, Environment News Service, December 5, 2000: Health, consumer and public interest groups this week criticized the Bayer Corporation for not voluntarily recalling an agricultural antibiotic that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) says might cause antibiotic resistance in humans. http://ens-news.com/ens/dec2000/2000L-12-05-09.html A Prescription for Poultry: Challenging Bayer Corp. to Stop Misusing Antibiotics, Environmental Defense Most people know that bacteria from uncooked chicken can cause a nasty case of food poisoning. What many don't know is that antibiotics are losing their effectiveness against such illnesses. Bacteria have developed increasing resistance to fluoroquinolones, the antibiotics often used to treat severe gastrointestinal infections. Part of the problem is the unnecessary overuse of these drugs on farm animals. http://www.environmentaldefense.org/pubs/Newsletter/2001/Jan/e_antibi.html Scientists See Higher Use of Antibiotics on Farms New York Times, January 8, 2001 Antibiotics are being used far more heavily in pigs, cows and chickens than has been revealed by the drug and livestock industries, a public interest group is saying today, citing as evidence its own calculations of the drugs' use on farms. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/08/health/08GERM.html 70% of all antibiotics given to healthy livestock, Environment News Service, January 9, 2001: Excessive use of antibiotics by meat producers -- eight times more than in human medicine -- contributes to an alarming increase in antibiotic resistance, a new
