http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/06/17-5 > > Published on Friday, June 17, 2011 by the Independent/UK > > Cheap Meat, MRSA and Deadly Greed > > If they aren't stopped soon, the WHO warns we are facing a 'doomsday > scenario of a world without antibiotics' > > by Johann Hari > > snip >
> As the scientists I've interviewed explain it, antibiotics do > something simple. They kill, slow down or stall the growth of > bacteria. They were one of the great advances of the 20th century, > and they have saved millions of us. But they inherently contain a > problem - one that was known about from very early on. They start an > arms race. Use an antibiotic against bacteria, and it kills most of > it - but it can also prompt the bacteria to evolve a tougher, > stronger, meaner strain that can fight back. The bacteria is > constantly mutating and dividing. The stronger the antibiotic, the > stronger some bacteria will become to survive. It's Darwin dancing at > super-speed. > > If one goes to the feed stores here (Colorado, USA) and buys chick starter feed it comes pre-loaded with antibiotics regardless if the chickens need them or not. The over use of such medicine is, as I'm sure everyone on this list agrees, a nasty issue. Though, I do take issue with how they describe the way bacteria "evolves." I find this a misuse (or rather overuse) of the term evolution. A closer term would be selective breeding where the bacteria that are naturally stronger or resistant stay alive and their resistance is selectively propagated. I'm splitting hairs, I know, and I think stating that we "prompt the bacteria to evolve" is a gross misrepresentation of the underlying mechanisms. Kind of like saying that every time you sand a piece of wood you're really decomposing the surface. I think it's important to point these things out as the more accurate we are the more defensible our arguments become. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/attachments/20110620/f2323ee3/attachment.html _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
