[livestockboy]

easy solution is to just heavily tax dairy, livestock and other industries that produce hundreds of billions of bacteria testing grounds (animals) per year at the same time using last-resport antibiotics to spur growth and reap profits.

or give extreme tax benefits to those that don't use antibiotics.

[gnashville]

Easy in concept but the beef cartel would fight tooth and nail against something like this.

[UweSchmidt]

Or cut down on the meat and dairy consumption?

[edc117]

Tax increase = higher prices = how consumption is cut down. Unfortunately most people won't listen to appeals from the scientific community.

[ensignavenger]

Any research you care to share to support your claims?

[livestockboy]

https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/4q920m/askscien...

nice AMA from the experts directly.

First answer:

> First, a lot of antibiotic resistance appears to be driven by the agricultural use of antibiotics as growth enhancers. Thus, we can be savvy consumers and support and be willing to absorb the costs of the efforts to get antibiotics out of the meat industry.

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=livestock+last-resort+a...

Here's a nice batch of results.

It's a well known problem, not some esoteric trivia. It is also the biggest cause of selective pressure, not antibacterial soaps or human medicine misuse of antibiotics.

[ensignavenger]

Cool, thanks! I did some looking into it, and it appears that as of 1 Jan 2017, in the US such uses of medically important antibiotics will be banned in the US (http://www.fda.gov/AnimalVeterinary/NewsEvents/CVMUpdates/uc...). The EU has had a ban since 2006. China and some other countries may still be a problem. Not sure how much meet the US/EU imports from those countries.

With these bans in place, it doesn't seem necessary to implement a tax on their use. Perhaps a ban on importing meat that was produced using antibiotics for growth.

[zdkl]

You think paying more for your food will make bacteria stop reacting to selective pressure? Or do you think we can stop relying on 'organic' food?(in the biochemical sense, not the hippie meaning)

Either way I've got some bad news for you

[nebula]

I can understand what he meant: Heavy use of antibiotics in diary and poultry industry is a significant factor contributing to drug resistant bacteria. In other words, these industries are actively providing the selection pressure you referring here.

[zdkl]

Well the selection environment is a requirement to not getting sick from eating the products. You can't just have a nice chat with the microbe unions and ask them to behave and stay off the meat...

[livestockboy]

> is a requirement to not getting sick from eating the products

one gives antibiotics to one's thousands of chickens to spur growth (body growth - gaining mass), not to protect the consumer from disease.

giving antibiotics to poultry extremely increases mass gains. post-slaughter processes add chemicals that keep meat from rotting, eradicating some of those living harmful bacteria that just so happen to turn flesh into unwanted dark piece of s+=t.

[zdkl]

I entirely agree on your opinion of the antibiotic situation regarding large scale farming. The problem is that we could not substitute another method to produce enough food to me(e|a)t demand. If we want to keep eating we must have safe food, and to keep food safe in frankly hostile environments we need to treat it. Until we can do without what passes for modern industrialised food growing and processing, we'll need treatments and colorants so we can pretend this is 'regular' food.

[snowwrestler]

Antibiotics are not given to livestock to reduce loss. They are given to increase mass.

Farming without prophylactic antibiotics--where antibiotics are only used to treat sick animals, as they are in humans--could meet the demand for food easily.

[mercutio2]

There is no need to meet the current demand for meat. If meat was our only food source, then perhaps this syllogism you've drawn would be true.

But in reality, meat is an inefficient form of producing food, with complements humans can easily shift to. So the way you get less antibiotic use in livestock in a capitalist decision market is by reducing the demand for livestock. Taxes do a great job at reducing demand.

[arethuza]

If the choice is cheap meat or antibiotics (and yes I know it's not quite that simple) then I'll take antibiotics.

[zdkl]

The cheap option is antibiotics, that's why we have this problem in hte first place! If you want the best of both worlds (limiting bacteria proliferation AND antibiotic use) the current methods for providing food at scale are impractical for many cost-related reasons.

[hx87]

I thought the choice was between expensive meat or antibiotics, or between cheap meat and /no/ antibiotics?

[forgetsusername]

>If the choice is cheap meat or antibiotics

Easy to say when you're wealthy, no so much when you consider yourself healthy but poor.

[SolaceQuantum]

If meat is expensive you can go on to a largely vegetable and plant based diet. Meat is already more expensive than tofu and beans and lentils. And thanks to the Internet, it's now easy to pick up recipes and change ones diet with food from multiple cultures that don't use extensive amounts of meat.

[sten]

Meat is a luxury.

[sageabilly]

Yup. I am an avid meat eater, love BBQ, all of the food I cook has meat in it- but I am absolutely aware that it is a luxury. I do my absolute best to buy higher quality meat as close to pasture raised as I can get... but I don't make that final leap to source out local farmers and buy directly from them to ensure that I know exactly how the meat I'm eating is raised.

But at the end of the day, not everyone can afford organic pasture raised eggs at $7/dozen. And the problem is that we've all gotten so used to eggs at $0.50/dozen or chicken at $1/pound that I don't think society as a whole could deal with the cost of meat equalizing to reflect the true cost of non-factory farmed production.

[hx87]

> I don't think society as a whole could deal with the cost of meat

We certainly could if we had to, but so far we haven't had to.

[hx87]

When I was poor, I didn't eat meat. If I am ever poor again I would go vegetarian. Cheap meat just isn't worth it.

[restalis]

I think limiting the means for gaining resistance should have been considered more seriously. For now, things are taken seriously only "when the shit hits the fan" and that in itself is a weakness that seemingly still affects us as species despite the numerous lessons that should have taught us the importance of prevention.