10 ms·

Citrus Farmers Facing Deadly Bacteria Turn to Antibiotics

83 points by mikenyc 7y ago

rectang 7y ago
> But for Florida’s struggling orange and grapefruit growers, the approvals could not come soon enough. The desperation is palpable They feel their own economic desperation intensely. How much sympathy can they muster for the desperation of those hospitalized with a racing antibiotic-resistant infection, or their loved ones? Many of those people will end up economically desperate, too.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- ekianjo 7y ago
  The problem is that in many developed countries the agricultural lobby is so strong that they have much more leverage than any other type of citizen. In the end of the day, politicians are to blame for listening to them and allowing them to yield so much power.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - rectang 7y ago
    Individual politicians have to muddle along balancing many factors and operate within a system which unfortunately requires loads of money to compete in elections. Some politicians are more to blame than others: those who bend the country towards "one dollar one vote" instead of "one person one vote". Those who lend them ideological support are as bad or worse. This maddening win by the agricultural lobby over public health is an the downstream result of privileging corporations over individuals.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
Camillo 7y ago
I wish we could spend a little political energy on banning the use of human antibiotics for agriculture. If the EU can do it, why can't we?
- conception 7y ago
  Florida is a swing state
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    Only matters to presidential candidates, not all Congressional reps.
newnewpdro 7y ago
Ban triclosan antibacterial soaps but expand antibiotic use in the food supply to include the produce department, OK.
option 7y ago
anti-science lobby at its worst. Because the solution is absolutely safe genetically modified citrus strain.
- option 7y ago
  It amazes and angers me by how much harm is done by: 1) anti-vaxers 2) anti-nuclear 3) anti-GMO A (much) Better public education is desperately needed
  - yhoneycomb 7y ago
    Woah there. There are legitimate reasons for being anti-nuclear and anti-GMO. Ridiculous that you just lumped those in with anti-vaxxers.
    - jimmaswell 7y ago
      All arguments I've seen against them have been really weak or intentionally misleading.
      - SomeOldThrow 7y ago
        I just swap out “gmo” for “monoculture” and it makes much more sense for resistance to the food. Among other things, industrial produce is noticeably lower quality than farmers market produce, cf tomatoes. The whole ecosystem benefits enormously from variety in produce. How do you interpret peoples’ fear of the food?
        jimmaswell 7y ago
        If non-gmo produce tastes so much better then people will buy it and farmers will still grow it, but cheaply available produce is a clear win for everyone. And as I said in the other comment, you can have GMO without monocultures if the need arises. The fear of eating it is all baseless fearmongering by the likes of homeopaths and crystal healers.
mahgnous 7y ago
Oh yay, another thing I can't F'king eat now.
edoo 7y ago
It is quite possible they have been pushing the limits of what can be done with our chemical age and are now reaping the unavoidable consequences. This makes me think of permaculture gardens that look absolutely wild unless you understand the requirements to grow a target plant naturally include the other plants involved that help regulate the system. In the very first paragraph they say "..has evaded all efforts to contain it..". I'm guessing every effort to 'contain' it involved shooting for the same output level that may no longer be easily obtainable without resorting to extremes. That which cannot be sustained won't be.
defterGoose 7y ago
This sounds so very, very bad. I really wish we could massively expand the scope and membership of the National Academy of Sciences to be able to function as a true watchdog for all of these other agencies that seem to increasingly be the victim of lobbying and regulatory capture. Also, it seems vitally important that we come up with some additional hierarchy of decision-making amongst these agencies themselves. Specifically in this case, and probably others, the CDC and FDA, which are in charge essentially of ensuring human health should be able to trump (oh god, no pun intended) the EPA/USDA which are in charge of seemingly more "economics"-scale issues like clean water and food supply. Pretty sure we can still have a stable food supply without oranges. Pretty sure we can't have a stable healthcare system without antibiotics. Its way easier to engineer a few new strains of citrus in a sterile lab than it is to deal with humans' genetic inability to deal with every infection-causing bacteria becoming resistant.
User23 7y ago
It's agriculture caused antifungal resistance[1] that really scares me. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/fungal/antifungal-resistance.html https://www.cdc.gov/fungal/antifungal-resistance.html

83 points by mikenyc 7y ago

> But for Florida’s struggling orange and grapefruit growers, the approvals could not come soon enough. The desperation is palpable They feel their own economic desperation intensely. How much sympathy can they muster for the desperation of those hospitalized with a racing antibiotic-resistant infection, or their loved ones? Many of those people will end up economically desperate, too.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
ekianjo 7y ago
The problem is that in many developed countries the agricultural lobby is so strong that they have much more leverage than any other type of citizen. In the end of the day, politicians are to blame for listening to them and allowing them to yield so much power.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- rectang 7y ago
  Individual politicians have to muddle along balancing many factors and operate within a system which unfortunately requires loads of money to compete in elections. Some politicians are more to blame than others: those who bend the country towards "one dollar one vote" instead of "one person one vote". Those who lend them ideological support are as bad or worse. This maddening win by the agricultural lobby over public health is an the downstream result of privileging corporations over individuals.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

Camillo 7y ago

I wish we could spend a little political energy on banning the use of human antibiotics for agriculture. If the EU can do it, why can't we?

conception 7y ago
Florida is a swing state
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  Only matters to presidential candidates, not all Congressional reps.

newnewpdro 7y ago

Ban triclosan antibacterial soaps but expand antibiotic use in the food supply to include the produce department, OK.

option 7y ago

anti-science lobby at its worst. Because the solution is absolutely safe genetically modified citrus strain.

option 7y ago
It amazes and angers me by how much harm is done by: 1) anti-vaxers 2) anti-nuclear 3) anti-GMO A (much) Better public education is desperately needed
- yhoneycomb 7y ago
  Woah there. There are legitimate reasons for being anti-nuclear and anti-GMO. Ridiculous that you just lumped those in with anti-vaxxers.
  - jimmaswell 7y ago
    All arguments I've seen against them have been really weak or intentionally misleading.
    - SomeOldThrow 7y ago
      I just swap out “gmo” for “monoculture” and it makes much more sense for resistance to the food. Among other things, industrial produce is noticeably lower quality than farmers market produce, cf tomatoes. The whole ecosystem benefits enormously from variety in produce. How do you interpret peoples’ fear of the food?
      - jimmaswell 7y ago
        If non-gmo produce tastes so much better then people will buy it and farmers will still grow it, but cheaply available produce is a clear win for everyone. And as I said in the other comment, you can have GMO without monocultures if the need arises. The fear of eating it is all baseless fearmongering by the likes of homeopaths and crystal healers.

mahgnous 7y ago

Oh yay, another thing I can't F'king eat now.

edoo 7y ago

It is quite possible they have been pushing the limits of what can be done with our chemical age and are now reaping the unavoidable consequences. This makes me think of permaculture gardens that look absolutely wild unless you understand the requirements to grow a target plant naturally include the other plants involved that help regulate the system. In the very first paragraph they say "..has evaded all efforts to contain it..". I'm guessing every effort to 'contain' it involved shooting for the same output level that may no longer be easily obtainable without resorting to extremes. That which cannot be sustained won't be.

defterGoose 7y ago

This sounds so very, very bad. I really wish we could massively expand the scope and membership of the National Academy of Sciences to be able to function as a true watchdog for all of these other agencies that seem to increasingly be the victim of lobbying and regulatory capture. Also, it seems vitally important that we come up with some additional hierarchy of decision-making amongst these agencies themselves. Specifically in this case, and probably others, the CDC and FDA, which are in charge essentially of ensuring human health should be able to trump (oh god, no pun intended) the EPA/USDA which are in charge of seemingly more "economics"-scale issues like clean water and food supply. Pretty sure we can still have a stable food supply without oranges. Pretty sure we can't have a stable healthcare system without antibiotics. Its way easier to engineer a few new strains of citrus in a sterile lab than it is to deal with humans' genetic inability to deal with every infection-causing bacteria becoming resistant.

User23 7y ago

It's agriculture caused antifungal resistance[1] that really scares me. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/fungal/antifungal-resistance.html https://www.cdc.gov/fungal/antifungal-resistance.html