Superbugs and antibiotic resistance

Joyce Otto writes:

Today's Des Moines Register has an article that explains how super bugs (antibiotic resistant bacteria) develop. Take a few minutes to enjoy it (link below). This is just one of many reasons that huge corporate animal confinements are just not sustainable in our world. ...

I am an RN who specializes in chronic wound care. We have a wound clinic, treating two people every half hour—lots of non-healing wounds in our world. One of the main reasons wounds do not heal is the over growth of bacteria. And one of the bad bacteria culprits is MRSA (Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus)—a super bug! Every single time we culture out an antibiotic resistant bacteria in a human wound, we cringe! They are harder to treat since it takes both oral and topical antibiotics to treat—and a lot of the population we treat cannot tolerate antibiotics very well (hard on their kidneys). Other wound bacteria only requires topical treatment—cleaning out the wound real well usually takes care of it.

I know that the use of antibiotics in CAFOs is not the sole reason for our antibiotic crisis, but it sure contributes. We cannot continue to take this risk of creating super bugs. Potentially we could ruin the use of antibiotics. Scientists are not able to create enough new antibiotics to keep up with these superbugs. It is not unreal to think about treating infections like they had to in the Civil Wa—rwhen a leg got infected, they cut it off—when an eye got infected, they cut it out—pneumonia was a #1 killer. Do we want this type of world again? Or should we require corporations to use antibiotics only for ill hogs? Stop giving low doses of antibiotics for faster growth and for prevention. Antibiotics are precious for public health. We citizens need to keep our world healthy for our children and the elderly since they have weaker immune systems.