[illivah]

The title annoys me. Being "human" antibiotics is irrelevant. They don't kill humans, and they're not human specific. They're just basic antibiotics.

If you were to cut out the alarmist, repetitive fluff you do actually have a problem at the bottom of all this. overused antibiotics (anywhere, on any species) tends to push evolution toward antibiotic resistance. That's bad. That said, from what I read in this article, this bill is also bad.

[mirimir]

That's true. But, from a human-centric perspective, what matters most is their ability to fight bacterial infections in humans. It's also true that antibiotics are also used inappropriately in medical practice. Pediatricians tend to prescribe them more-or-less as a placebo, to fend off freaked-out parents. Flu suffers also tend to demand them. But there's always some ambiguity, given risk of secondary bacterial infections.

There's no ambiguity in using antibiotics in livestock management to increase feed efficiency. That's just about the money. It either needs to be illegal, or we need some class torts ;)

[duskwuff]

Also from a human-centric perspective: having antibiotics that are frequently used for humans in our food supply chain increases the risk that bacteria resistant to those antibiotics will enter that supply chain, potentially leading to outbreaks of those antibiotic-resistant bactiera. Maintaining a strict distinction between "human antibiotics" and "agricultural antibiotics" mitigates that risk.

[illivah]

I had a coworker tell me that they had the cold and that they're taking an antibiotic for it. We went on a back and forth, with me repeatedly telling him that antibiotics would make him worse, a cold is viral. I think he badgered the doctor into giving him some. What was funny is that everyone in the shop just about had that cold, and he had it longer than most people. But those antibiotics were really helping.

[mirimir]

Some years ago, I did develop bacterial pneumonia after a bad cold. So maybe the antibiotic saved my life. But the antibiotic prescription was based on diagnosis and sputum culture, and not just prophylactic. Better yet, now I've been immunized.

[alyx]

Excuse my ignorance, but aren't antibiotics meant for humans, tested on us as well?

I think the issue here is that antibiotics being given to animals were not studied for these scenarios. For instance, how they may impact milk and meat quality. Not to mention that they are given to animals in much less "regulated" way, compared to people.

[illivah]

At some point, yes. But that's not the first place they're tested. The first place their tested could simply be a petri dish, as penicillin was. Then it goes up the ranks into mammals more and more similar to us - rats, pigs, monkeys, etc. Usually it's not every step, because there really isn't a big reason to and that can slow development and increase costs of life-saving drugs.

[skuhn]

These antibiotics aren't made out of humans or in some way related to humans, but they have a place in human treatment plans. They're the ones we care about, and they're immensely valuable. Calling them "human antibiotics" is a reasonable shorthand for an article.

Their usage should be a lot more restricted than it currently is. Anything that unnecessarily diminishes their value to human treatment should be disallowed. Use on other species, for example; particularly when that enters the human food supply. Treating non-bacterial infections in humans is another.

I think it's pretty hard to overstate the importance of avoiding overuse of antibiotics. You don't even need to imagine modern medicine if antibiotics had never been discovered. More likely than not you wouldn't be alive today.