[arbitrage]

I hear that the FDA will also be releasing a recommendation to close the barn door after the cows get out.

You just can't be too careful, you know.

[giarc]

You're right, this is long overdue, however hind sight is 20/20 and late is better than never.

[redblacktree]

The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago; the second-best time is now.

[mhurron]

Bad things were done before, so clearly they should never be remedied.

[pessimizer]

You can't unkill the dead, even if you have an honest change of heart. Long-term antibiotic effectiveness may be a dead thing.

[marcosdumay]

> Long-term antibiotic effectiveness may be a dead thing.

Or they may not. It's better to try to keep it alive while we are still unsure.

[Silhouette]

Long-term antibiotic effectiveness may be a dead thing.

Perhaps it will be, or at least it will for the medications we currently use. However, if we lose current antibiotics before finding or developing alternatives of similar or better effectiveness, human medicine is going to regress by decades and many people are going to suffer horribly. It's not just the obvious direct benefits of antibiotics we're going to lose, it's everything else that will go with them.

Dumping antibiotics all over the place via food production methods is absurdly wasteful of what might be a limited resource. Even if the eventual loss of current capabilities really is inevitable, putting back the date when it happens as much as possible to allow for research into alternatives could literally be a win on a global scale. This change is long overdue.

[josefresco]

Joking aside, if there was monetary gain to be had from leaving the barn door open, you bet business would take full advantage of it.