Martha Rosenberg: Kennedy Antibiotic Bill Meets 'Resistance' from Big Pharma

[demobabe]

Senator Edward Kennedy just got less popular with Big Pharma. If that's possible.

After taking on prescription drug prices, he is now tangling with antibiotics used in livestock.

The routine administration of growth-producing antibiotics (GPAs) to healthy animals has been U.S. practice for years. GPAs are thought to produce growth by killing intestinal bacteria so animal feed is assimilated more efficiently.

But the World Health Organization and American Medical Association condemn their use because they contribute to antibiotic resistance. And the European Union made them illegal last year.

Environmentalists say GPA residues are found in food, fish, and streams; food activists say they make farm conditions possible that would otherwise kill. Now a bill introduced by Kennedy (D-MA), Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME), and Representative Louise Slaughter (D-NY), a microbiologist, would phase out nontherapeutic use in livestock of "medically important antibiotics."

...

Of course Big Pharma and agribusiness deny the danger of antibiotic resistance. The "risk of resistant bacteria transferring from animals to humans via the food supply is extremely small," says the Animal Health Institute (AHI) on its Web site. AHI members include Abbott, Bayer, Dow, Monsanto, Novartis, Pfizer, Schering-Plough, and 10 other life science (nee chemical) and animal health companies.

More here: http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/contributors/843

[demobabe]

1. kick

:kick:

[demobabe]

2. thought this one would get more interest

Antibiotic resistance is GOOD for big pharma in addition to making profits off the antibiotics... the sicker we become, the more we need their other drugs...

:(

[angstlessk]

3. They twisted the debate...

Of course Big Pharma and agribusiness deny the danger of antibiotic resistance. The "risk of resistant bacteria transferring from animals to humans via the food supply is extremely small," says the Animal Health Institute (AHI) on its Web site. AHI members include Abbott, Bayer, Dow, Monsanto, Novartis, Pfizer, Schering-Plough, and 10 other life science (nee chemical) and animal health companies.

It is that WE ingest the antibiotics and HUMAN bacteria becomes immune...IT IS NOT ABOUT THE TRANSFER OF ANIMAL BACTERIA :grr:

[demobabe]

4. Yes! exactly!

Not to mention it getting out into the world at large in general. Into the water and waste systems (and I don't even want to think about all the "antibacterial" soap we're washing right down the drain which is also making our germs nastier).

[sakabatou]

5. Yay!

More non treatable diseases! :sarcasm:

[demobabe]

6. Don't worry

Big pharma will have PLENTY of drugs to treat the symptoms since they can't cure the disease!

However, you won't be able to afford them.

[sakabatou]

7. Huzzah!