Superbugs. An alarming story in this week's The New Yorker focuses on man-made new diseases that cannot be eradicated with conventional antibiotics, even inside hospitals. The writer quotes Michael Pollan to explain the connection to your local meat factory:
"Seventy per cent of the antibiotics administered in America end up in agriculture," Michael Pollan, a professor of journalism at Berkeley and the author of "In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto," told [the writer]. "The drugs are not used to cure sick animals but to prevent them from getting sick, because we crowd them together under filthy circumstances. We have created the perfect environment in which to breed superbugs that are antibiotic-resistant. We've created a petri dish in our factory farms for the evolution of dangerous pathogens."
Not much convenience in “convenience foods”
No healthcare reform without food-system reform
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caniscandida Posted 8:24 pm
08 Aug 2008
"we crowd them together"
Yes, Michael Pollan and others have been observing for some time now how the CAFO system can produce dangerous new agents of disease.
Of course, when we talk about the abolition of CAFOs as a great evil, the human-health issue is of secondary importance.
Practically, though, it may move those people who are otherwise blind/insensate to the ethically primary issue. So by all means, let us hear more from Kit Stolz and Dr. Jerome Groopman.
Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.
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amazingdrx Posted 1:50 am
09 Aug 2008
Justice
It almost seems to be some sort of eco-justice Canis.
Get food from a system based on cruelty for bottomline efficiency and reap the superbugs. Remember "War Of The Worlds"? The viruses finally killed the alien invaders.
Has our culture turned into an alien invasion of earth? I think so. We have alienated ourselves from the symbiotic natural system from which we sprung.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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javaearth Posted 6:59 am
09 Aug 2008
What goes around comes around.....
What goes around comes around.....
I only have this one life, so I am going to try my very best to make a positive change. --- The Happy & Healthy Vegan ---
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Wolverine Posted 7:52 am
09 Aug 2008
Alien Invasion Of Earth
The Golgafrinchans took over tens of millennia ago, unfortunately. That's the reason that modern humans and those who aspire to be like them don't care about the Earth; they're not from here originally.
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caniscandida Posted 6:16 pm
09 Aug 2008
deep history
Thanks for reminding me of that, Wolverine. It explains a great deal, doesn't it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Places_in_The_Hitchhiker%27s ...
It has been too too long since I read those books, and it seems high time to get them down from the shelf.
I recall being disappointed that the "intelligent shade of the color blue" never became a major character.
Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.
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amazingdrx Posted 3:25 am
10 Aug 2008
Panspermia
Kind of sexist, actually it ought to be called pan-eggia (fungi spores are the extraterrestrial DNA code carriers in this theory). But here it is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia
This suggests that maybe the DNA information is transferred to a planet in spores, then evolution begins. Exogenesis wiki calls it.
What if the spores are DNA designed to root in the basic organic elements existing before life comes on the scene? It kind of makes our spaceship earth seem that much more inspired by some eternal natural life force, no hand of god needed.
Do spores go through black holes intact? they are extremely tough.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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