As someone who operates a farm, it’s BS. What this really attempts to do, is force me to hire some licensed person to tell me what I already know. Worse, vets are overloaded and there are shortages.
So I have to pay $500 to get some vet to come out in 1-2 days, to tell me what I already know. In that time, my cattle can die, it can spread all costing me more and benefiting no one. Further, because I can only sell a head for $750-2000 this basically wipes out any potential profit.
This is basically just helping the big players who keep a vet on staff or in a high concentrated area. Most of the small farms in my area are just going to get screwed.
Finally, I’m curious how much evidence there is animals use of antibiotics impact humans. Most diseases don’t spread from animal to human, so I don’t suspect it’s all that impactful. On the other hand, it could be to reduce animal-to-animal diseases. That would make sense.
All that being said, to be honest, I think this is an effort to limit the things we saw during Covid. Basically, people realized they could get any drugs for animals cheap and easy. It’s screwing up the medical system, making it as cheap as drugs in the rest of the world.
Actually, what it's attempting to do is prevent antibiotic being used as growth promoters. If they were only used on animals that are sick it would not be a problem. As it is, it's a serious problem as the sibling comment points out.
But, the net effect is what you say. What other solutions are there? Tax them so other uses aren't economic, perhaps?
> Finally, I’m curious how much evidence there is animals use of antibiotics impact humans.
There's a ton, and it all points to antibiotic overuse in agriculture as the main culprit.
Antibiotics and their metabolites don't just stay in animals, they exist in their waste and percolate throughout the environment, water supply, etc, causing antibiotic resistance in bacteria in the environment.
Antibiotic resistance in bacteria is mainly from misuse in humans and animals, and disease spread between the two, along with ineffective waste treatment and the leaching of antibiotics into the environment[1]. About 80% of antibiotics sold in the US are used in agriculture[2], where they are given to animals not to treat infections, but to prevent them and to stimulate growth.
Here are some diagrams from the CDC[3][4], and some articles[5][6][7] from the CDC.
> Most diseases don’t spread from animal to human, so I don’t suspect it’s all that impactful.
Over 60% of infectious diseases in humans are spread from animals, and 75% of new diseases in humans are spread from animals[3].
So I have to pay $500 to get some vet to come out in 1-2 days, to tell me what I already know. In that time, my cattle can die, it can spread all costing me more and benefiting no one. Further, because I can only sell a head for $750-2000 this basically wipes out any potential profit.
This is basically just helping the big players who keep a vet on staff or in a high concentrated area. Most of the small farms in my area are just going to get screwed.
Finally, I’m curious how much evidence there is animals use of antibiotics impact humans. Most diseases don’t spread from animal to human, so I don’t suspect it’s all that impactful. On the other hand, it could be to reduce animal-to-animal diseases. That would make sense.
All that being said, to be honest, I think this is an effort to limit the things we saw during Covid. Basically, people realized they could get any drugs for animals cheap and easy. It’s screwing up the medical system, making it as cheap as drugs in the rest of the world.