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Re: Antibiotics and Thin-skinned CEO's and the rest
- To: aquatic-plants at actwin_com
- Subject: Re: Antibiotics and Thin-skinned CEO's and the rest
- From: Bill Wichers <billw at waveform_net>
- Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2003 15:29:04 -0400
I have the impression that the antibiotics used by aquariasts have little if
any impact on the web of life. There is no good evidence that antibiotics
used in household cleaners or to keep beef animals healthy cause any
significant damage to anything, any more that releasing native fish back into
their original environment causes significant harm.
Bacteria build up resistance by being exposed to an agent that doesn't kill
the entire population. The few that survive breed more, and over time the
strong keep surviving and breeding, with the result being that the
population consists primarily of those bacteria that are the *most
resistant* to the agent they have been exposed to. Constant exposure to an
agent, in this case an antibiotic, virtually guarantees that some strain of
bacteria will at least develop some amount of resistance to that agent.
It isn't that the use in household cleaners causes "damage" but more of an
issue of reducing the effectiveness of the antibiotics used in the cleaners
as a means to combat various strains of bacteria.
Probably people who stop taking a prescribed antibiotic when the symptoms
vanish contribute far more to the development of antibiotic-resistant germs.
I would most certainly agree with you here. People who do that are very big
problem. I can think of some fears that some in the medical industry have
with the long-term effectiveness of tuberculosis treatments that are a
result of people not completing the treatments...
I don't think that much is gained by bashing classes of people or by taking
shots at nonexistent "drug cartels." All groups in society have caused and
are causing environmental degradation. Society learns and moves on.
A lot of household products are targeted at people based on incorrect
beliefs that they hold as fact. There is a general lack of scientific
knowledge about these kinds of things in the general public, which makes
explaining these types of problems to them difficult. Marketing people are
there to sell stuff, not explain reality to people, which doesn't help things.
-Bill
People shouldn't let their personal ideologies get in the way of
dispassionate analysis.
Bill
*****************************
Waveform Technology
UNIX Systems Administrator