Day: October 16, 2003

PETA Urges Newfoundlanders to Go Vegetarian

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals took out a billboard in St. John’s, Newfoundland urging people there to abandon fishing.

The billboard features Carre Otis as a mermaid with the tagline, “Try to relate to what’s on your plate.”

The billboard wasn’t too persuasive to a customer of Ches’s Famous Fish and Chips in St. John’s who told The CBC,

She doesn’t look nearly as attractive or taste as good as fish.

I guess the roles just aren’t coming in for Otis after the masterpiece that was Wild Orchid.

Source:

Go vegetarian: animal rights group to Newfoundlanders. CBC News, August 22, 2003.

World Health Organization Endorses Ban on Antibiotics to Promote Animal Growth

In August the World Health Organization went on record as favoring a worldwide ban on the use of growth-promoting antibiotics in animal feed. Routine use of animal antibiotics to promote growth is controversial due to fears that it might increase the rate at which human diseases become antibiotic resistant.

WHO cites the example of Denmark which banned the use of growth-promoting antibiotics in animal feed. According to WHO, the result was an increased cost to farmers of one percent, but was more than justified by the large decline in antibiotic resistant bacteria found in pigs and chickens — in some cases the level of antibiotic resistant bacteria fell from 80 percent before to 5 percent after the ban.

But, the WHO concedes it is still missing the crucial piece of the puzzle — does reducing antibiotics in animals reduce antibiotic-resistant diseases in human beings. There, the WHO concedes that there is no evidence that the ban on animal antibiotics in feed has had any positive effect on human health,

Data from healthy humans however are relatively sparse on which to assess the effect of the termination of antimicrobial growth promoters on the carriage of antimicrobial resistant bacteria. There is some indication that termination of antimicrobial growth promoters in Denmark may be associated with a decline in the prevalence of streptogramin resistance among E. faecium from humans. There is also an indication that the termination may be associated with an increase in resistance among E. faecalis to erythromycin (a macrolide), which may reflect an increase in the therapeutic use in pigs of tylosin (another macrolide). However, it should be noted that erythromycin is not a very important antimicrobial for the treatment of enterococcal infections in humans; preferred drugs include ampicillin, amoxycillin, vancomycin, streptogramins (for E. faecium), and linezolid. Further larger studies are needed to determine how much of an effect the discontinued use of antimicrobial growth promoters in Denmark will have on the carriage of antimicrobial resistance in the intestinal tract of humans in the community.

. . .

Overall, termination of antimicrobial growth promoters appears not to have affected the incidence of antimicrobial residues in foods or the incidence of human Salmonella, Campylobacter, or Yersinia infections in humans. These are the major zoonoses in Denmark that may be associated with consumption of pork and poultry. In an industry aggressively pursuing successful Salmonella reduction strategies, antimicrobial growth promoter termination appears not to have affected the prevalence of Salmonella in pig herds, pork, broiler flocks and poultry meat, or the prevalence of Campylobacter in poultry meat.

WHO and others are likely going to have to come up with a bit more positive results than that before seeing other nations emulate Denmark’s experiment.

Sources:

WHO Urges End to Use of Antibiotics for Animal Growth. Marc Kauffman, Washington Post, August 12, 2003.

WHO warns farmers on antibiotics. Associated Press, August 13, 2003.

Cut down on drugs for animals: UN agency. CBC News, August 13, 2003.

WHO international review panel’s evaluation of the termination of the use of antimicrobial growth promoters in Denmark. World Health Organization, August 2003.

Excellent Rule to Live By on the Internet

One of the neat things about running a weblog/web site is looking at the server logs to see who is linking to/writing about you. Lately, I’ve noticed a lot of sites taking advantage of the various RSS feeds I offer to post my latest headlines on their site.

This site about boxers (dogs, not pugilists) has a page featuring several RSS feeds related to animals which includes this warning which is very appropriate for the Internet,

Beware wackos

As always use your own best judgment when viewing stories on the net. Beware wackos who sound persuasive. Do your own homework.

What excellent advice!

HP — Where a Guarantee Doesn’t Mean Jack

Earlier this year when I bought a new laptop direct from HP, I paid an extra $350 for a three year warranty that covered accidental damage and promised a three day turnaround for any repairs. I’ve had a couple of minor problems — the worst is a fan that suddenly sounds like its a jet engine.

Now I paid the $350 to get the three day turnaround because even a day without my laptop feels like losing an arm or a leg. In fact, I’ve been putting off repair of a minor problem for 6 months precisely because even three days is an eternity.

So imagine my surprise when I call HP and the tech support person basically says that the three day guarantee really isn’t a guarantee — because their repair center is supposedly “backlogged” my three day guaranteed repair may in fact take 7 to 10 days.

Apparently when they said they guaranteed a three day turn around in exchange for $350, they just meant that they would think about it really hard before telling me 7 to 10 days.

Can’t I Go To Subway Without the Dildos Please?

Maybe I’m becoming a crotchety old man who doesn’t understand “kids these days” anymore. But really I try. For example, I’ve come to live with the fact that because I work at a university and I choose to eat in the food court in the basement of the student union, that when I go up the stairs I’ll learn more than I wanted to about dental dams,

Fine, but I don’t think I’ll ever grasp why I can’t just grab a sub at Subway or withdraw some money from the bank without having to walk past this,

The day before I took this picture I actually brought my six year old daughter in with me for lunch — thank God these folks weren’t set up then! (And I see lots of kids here at lunch because, as with most universities, we have a large segment of nontraditional students).

And the weird thing is that you can still read nonsense in the student paper or from the pamphlets insists that there isn’t enough frank discussion about sex. Yeah right — more like a severe case of oversharing.