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Antibiotics in Your Plate
 

Photo: SXC

MIND MAGAZINE |One century. Sir Martin Rees thinks that’s the time remaining to humanity. We still have the time to adjust ourselves and reverse things somehow, though. Bio-tech warfare, nuclear weapons, nano-technology, super-computers taking control of our planet, environmental disasters, dangerous foods. He has even made a bet: 1000$ that from here to 2020 a bio-disaster will cause death of millions. According to the Queen’s official Astronomer (a purely honorific title), humanity has 50% chances of survival over the next century. What about the social aspects of this so-called progress today? Let’s first explore the aspect of progress in the food area. After all, eating’s what keeps you alive and guarantees the species survival over generations!

Of course, scientific progress has facilitated life in general. Increases in productivity of the food processing sector have been drastic over the last decades and less and less people had to devote their life to agriculture. We have developed powerful antibiotics and overdosed our cattle with it. Why? Because so much cattle is packed in such small places that risks of transmitting illnesses from one animal to another is too great. And also because a cow that dies is a cattle that cannot be sold. Now, bacterias are more resistant to antibiotics and scientists have established a link between resistance to human sickness. After all, we eat all that stuff! Why have we made that: big bucks. At the risk of human health, no one is ready to pay that price. How long do we have to wait to know yet more secondary effects? A generation or so, says Shiv Chopra, employed by Health Canada.
 

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When you consider that the real price (that means market price less inflation) of chicken has gone down 30% in 30 years, something is wrong. Prices are normally supposed to go up. Not anymore! A “hormo-chicken”, from its birth, will be ready to be chopped down in 41 days, compared to 90 days in the 1950’s. Humans have extended their domination even on the growth of other animals. This is not biologically normal and puts extended stress on animals, as well as including hormones in our food… that are not supposed to be there! How come, then, that puberty is now happening at 12 years old, compared to 14 years old back in 1900? Probably not the hand of God! Statistical correlation is very positive on that! The reason: prices must stay low. Of course, food prices should stay low, but at which price?

Increased resistance to antibiotics have been observed in the last decades. In Canada, two scientists have been summoned by Health Canada (the Canadian public organization responsible to test drugs before they are commercialized) to shut their mouth about their doubts on a new medication combining both growth hormones and antibiotics, in 2002. Health Canada lost the trial, but still, authorities have some knowledge of what’s happening and prefer doubts on what we eat to safe testing… And that’s in Canada, not a third-world country. Increased consumption of antibiotics in the last decades both by animals and humans have lead to increased resistance of bacteria to antibiotics. They have been conceived and must be used to heal, not to prevent infections.

We have an immune system to fight back microbes. Antibiotics are there to compensate violent attacks from microorganisms. In Québec, a Canadian province, resistance of to antibiotics has reached 15%, 41% in the United States and even 80%(!) in Honk Kong. In Québec, 19% of streptococcus bacteria are resistant to penicillin! And penicillin has been the most powerful antibiotic for decades. Not anymore, thanks to abusive use. Thanks to the restaurant chain and the meet packing industry.

But the fast food culture is not the only responsible entity here. Common belief that antibiotics can heal almost anything has caused abusive prescription to reach a very large scale. But these medications are not useful on viral infections, and doctors receiving pressure from their patients and not establishing clear diagnosis, too much has been prescribed. This is slowly changing, but secondary effects are there already. The biggest problem is still what we eat. Of the world’s medication production, 50% is manufactured for animals!

Next time you go to the supermarket, look at the label, it takes a mere 3 seconds. The way the chicken or cattle has been fed is indicated on the package. If you can’t afford the price of bio meat, stick with vegetable-fed cattle; at least you’ll know what they ate! But there’s still a good chance that the animals have been given antibiotics. At least, some have made steps, like the chicken restaurant chain Saint-Hubert, present in Western Canada, which now serves vegetable-fed chicken. To eliminate totally the risks of being fed stuff not really good for human health and animal health too, we must change radically the way we raise and process food nowadays. We need food to survive, after all, and if one generation’s affected definitely, the survival of the species is at stake, and that’s not a joke.


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