Comments on: Robert Lawrence on antibiotic resistance and livestock

By: Linus Hollis, ScD

Linus Hollis, ScD — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 14:03:18 +0000

As the end of the antibiotic era looms, we must investigate alternative forms of resistance to infectious bacteria. Indeed, penicillin gives us our first clue: infect ourselves with synergistic organisms that eat bacteria for breakfast! Push the concept of Probiotics to our outer as well as our inner skin. Just imagine the horror of antibiotic-resistant Helicobacter pylorii, recently associated with cancers. It is perhaps pertinant that our DNA contains the complete genome of a bacteria. It is not unimaginable that we rewrite that code to contain a strongly bacteria resistant organism like a Proteus species. Our very survival may depend on it.

By: Amy

Amy — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 11:32:57 +0000

This is not accurate and not scientifically correct. Farmers care about their animals and the food they feed their very own families, and are not going to grow or raise anything they can’t feed their own families. People need to be educated about the where their food comes from and to realized that it is a right for peolple to eat meat if they want just as it’s a right to be vegan. It’s not inhumane and I hope people will do research instead of believing all they here. Take a trip to a farm. The amount of people that are distanced from farms is enormous, and they are prey to those people that want to turn the country into total vegetarians and rule out our agricultural heritage.

By: shi james

shi james — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 10:33:13 +0000

i love this article it can work

By: Jim Bynum

Jim Bynum — Tue, 19 May 2009 12:55:14 +0000

In spite of Lawrence’s helping guide a 2.5 year independent study, it would appear the study missed the fact that antibiotic resistant bacteria are being created in water and wastewater treatment plants. Farms and grazing land are being used as land treatment sites for these antibiotic resistant bacteria as well as other pathogens.

In 1981, Armstrong et. al, in the study, Selection of antibiotic-resistant standard plate count bacteria during water treatment, found “ the selective factors operating in the aquatic environment of a water treatment facility can act to increase the proportion of antibiotic-resistant members of the SPC [Standard Plate Count] bacterial population in treated drinking water.” “These bacteria were isolated from the flash mix tank, where chlorine, alum, and lime are added to the water.”

In 1981, EPA scientist, Mark Meckes, studied the Effect of UV light disinfection on antibiotic-resistant coliforms in wastewater effluents. in “filtered activated sludge effluents before and after UV light irradiation” and found “Multiple drug resistance patterns of 300 total coliform isolates revealed that 82% were resistant to two or more antibiotics. Furthermore, 46% of these isolates were capable of transferring antibiotic resistance to a sensitive strain of Escherichia coli.” Meckes concluded, “ Additional investigations should be conducted to determine what effect other wastewater disinfectants, such as chlorine or ozone, may have on the antibiotic resistant fraction of the bacterial population. There is an additional need to determine the sanitary significance of the results of such investigations.”

Coliform are all of the Enterobacteriaceae family of bacteria such as E. coli, Salmonella, Shigella, Vibro, etc.