As living organisms, bacteria are encoded by DNA, and DNA occasionally mutates. Sometimes genetic mutations render a bacterium immune to an antibiotic’s chemical tactics. The few cells that might escape antibiotic pressure then have a sudden advantage: with their counterparts wiped out, resources abound, and the remaining antibiotic-resistant bacteria proliferate. It’s a problem not only for the host—you or me when we are treated with an antibiotic and develop a resistant strain—but also for anyone with whom we happen to share our resistant bacteria, say, on a door handle or keyboard. In fact, most resistant bacteria develop not in people but in livestock fed antibiotics to promote growth; these resistant bacteria infect people through contaminated animal products. This is how even antibiotic “naive” people come to be infected with resistant strains of bacteria.
I see this all the time as a family doctor. A woman has a urinary tract infection. I tell her that her bacteria are resistant to this or that antibiotic, and she says, “But I’ve never taken any of those.” Welcome to the global human soup.
They’re not.
History has proven over and over again that systemic change doesn’t happen through voluntary individual action unless government creates incentives or nudges to drive that action.
Admonishing people to eat less (or no) meat won’t solve the problem of antibiotic resistance any more than asking them to pollute less fixed global warming.
If anything, asking individuals to sacrifice to solve a problem caused by industry will just harden people against action as it directs blame in exactly the wrong direction.
The dichotomy of individuals and society/government is just an illusion. The government consists of individuals too. And every systemic change that was achieved through legislation is crafted by individuals in the government, who as a group formed new principles. Every single time when a new law is created in a democratic society, there has to be a critical mass of people who bring up that topic.
I don’t know where you live, but am not living in a kingdom or a monarchy where I look up to THE GOVERNMENT as some entity that decides over all the actions of the people, and to which I transfer full responsibility for my live and future.
As responsible people, we should not use the excuse that the system is against us when it comes to everyday life.
And by the way: a vegetarian or vegan or ecologically sensible lifestyle is not a “sacrifice”, but the free decision to lead a healthy and sustainable life. If someone wants that for themselves and their family, then you don’t wait for the government.
That doesn’t mean that I am against regulation of the industry. I simply said, if someone wants to avoid taking antibiotics with food, it’s a good reason to not eat meat.
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