Category: Uncategorized

AS SERIOUS AS TERRORISM. "The chief medical officer of the United Kingdom, Dame Sally Davies — who calls antibiotic resistance as serious a threat as terrorism — recently published a book in which she imagines what might come next. She sketches a world where infection is so dangerous that anyone with even minor symptoms would be locked in confinement until they recover or die." https://medium.com/@fernnews/imagining-the-post-antibiotics-future-892b57499e77 View in LinkedIn

FINAL CHICKEN CARCASS WASH. "In addition, since 2004 an EU regulation (835/EC) requires meat products to be washed using potable water..." Not super-chlorinated water. http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-203477048.html View in LinkedIn

NO NEW NEWS. "As antibiotics became more affordable and their use increased, bacteria developed defenses more quickly. Methicillin arrived in 1960 and methicillin resistance in 1962; levofloxacin in 1996 and the first resistant cases the same year; linezolid in 2000 and resistance to it in 2001; daptomycin in 2003 and the first signs of resistance in 2004." https://medium.com/@fernnews/imagining-the-post-antibiotics-future-892b57499e77 View in LinkedIn

"CONSUMER RESEARCH in European countries such as the UK, Finland, and Denmark, show the overwhelming majority of consumers have no appetite for chicken washed in chemicals." http://www.beuc.eu/blog/what-is-wrong-with-chlorinated-chicken/ View in LinkedIn

FLEMING'S PREDICTION PROVEN. "Penicillin-resistant staph emerged in 1940, while the drug was still being given to only a few patients. Tetracycline was introduced in 1950, and tetracycline-resistant Shigella emerged in 1959; erythromycin came on the market in 1953, and erythromycin-resistant strep appeared in 1968." https://medium.com/@fernnews/imagining-the-post-antibiotics-future-892b57499e77 View in LinkedIn

DANGERS OF THE IGNORANT MAN. "It is not difficult to make microbes resistant to penicillin in the laboratory by exposing them to concentrations not sufficient to kill them… There is the danger that the ignorant man may easily underdose himself and by exposing his microbes to non-lethal quantities of the drug make them resistant.” (Sir Alexander Fleming's Nobel acceptance speech 1945). https://medium.com/@fernnews/imagining-the-post-antibiotics-future-892b57499e77 View in LinkedIn

POST-ANTIBIOTIC ERA. "Last week a global coalition of organizations from six continents called on the World Health Organization to adopt a resolution to discourage the growing crisis of antibiotic-resistance worldwide, warning of a "post-antibiotic era" with disastrous public health implications." http://lnkd.in/dJDRfdj View in LinkedIn

US ANTIBIOTICS USE IN FARM ANIMALS. "About 80 percent of antibiotics are fed to farm animals, often to promote growth or to compensate for unsanitary and crowded conditions on factory farms. Other countries that have limited their use -- including Denmark -- have seen a drop in the development of antibiotic resistant bacteria." http://lnkd.in/dJDRfdj View in LinkedIn

US AND EC TRADE TALKS are hung up on significant differences in attitudes towards food regulation. This is not limited to chlorinated chickens, but embraces a raft of issues. The general US public has been largely unaware of the lack of regulation of the food industry. The FDA has no jurisdiction. The USDA, which does have jurisdiction on farm food, is pro-industry, and passive. View in LinkedIn

MASSIVE POULTRY INDUSTRY CHANGES. In 1925 it took 16 weeks to get a chicken to market size, weighing 2.2 lbs, and needing 4.7 lbs of feed per pound of bird. By 2010, it was down to 6 weeks to get to market, at 5.7 lbs, and only needing 1.75 lbs of feed per pound of meat. Dramatic changes by genetics, biological manipulation, and corporate farming. http://lnkd.in/duaygqG View in LinkedIn