Of course I’m not literally saying “there’s nothing I can do.” That was a rhetorical device, as I suspect nearly everyone reading the entry realized.

I’m a journalist and a columnist and a blogger. What I “do” is write about things so people can think about these conditions and hopefully take action in their communities and their governments to change things.

What I’m pointing out, Emily, is the false equivalency of individuals with government agencies as well as giant industries,trade groups, and corporations, all with their teams of lobbyists, press relations experts, advertising agencies, and lawyers.

Take food safety. We find that our food supply has become contaminated with fecal bacteria. There is a quite justified campaign to inform individuals of this problem, and to encourage us to do things to counteract that problem in our own kitchens. So we’re told to use gloves and cook things more than we might normally cook them, and wipe our counters down with bleach and use disposable cutting boards and stop eating Ceasar salad and rare hamburger and eggs over easy. To never give our dogs a bone.

And we do those things.

But individuals have an additional option: To realize that there are industrial and corporate and yes, government reasons why there are feces in our hamburger.

The role of the individual here is not, as I see it, to let contaminated food be the norm in American grocery stores while the entire responsibility for safe handling devolves onto the home kitchen.

Of course I’m taking steps that the food I eat is safe in my own kitchen. But that’s not all I should be doing, because this is not a home kitchen problem. No, my act as an individual, my way of taking responsibility, is to demand answers to the simple question of why there’s poop in my dinner in the first place.

Fecal bacteria in the human food supply is not a home kitchen problem. Melamine in the pet food was not a home kitchen problem, either.

And superbugs are not a home medicine cabinet problem, even though people should, indeed, be using medications responsibly.

To say “The pot and kettle can call each other black all they like, but will it move us forward?” is the worse sort of disingenousness here. This isn’t pot v kettle; this is David v Goliath.

But we cannot as citizens do our part without understanding that there IS a problem, and what the problem is. And with all due respect, industry, industry trade groups and government regulators are extremely reluctant to divulge the information we need to make informed decisions when it comes to voting or buying.

And by the way, Emily, it would be nice if you were honest with the readers here as well, divulging who you work for (or at least, where you’re using a computer, according to your IP address) so we all can fairly evaluate what factors may go into your point of view.

I didn’t say anything about humans getting sick from drug resistant bacteria. I said there was a global emergence of superbugs, and the rise in these hard-to-treat infections is part of that pattern.

However, I still don’t accept your premise even on its narrow terms. Fluoroquinolone resistance is extremely widespread in bacteria today — Baytril being a fluoroquinolone, as is the human drug cipro. Baytril was the drug my vet first put Kyrie on, but it’s now known that these bacteria rapidly become resistant to fluoroquinolones, including Baytril, even if initial testing indicates they’re sensitive to it.

And yet, when FDA announced in 2000 it was going to ban all use of fluoroquinolones in poultry feed, opposition in the industry was enormous. It took FIVE YEARS for that decision to be implemented, due to the that opposition. And yet, as “Fluoroquinolone-resistant Campylobacter species and the withdrawal of fluoroquinolones from use in poultry: a public health success story” states:

Campylobacter species cause 1.4 million infections each year in the United States. Fluoroquinolones (e.g., ciprofloxacin) are commonly used in adults with Campylobacter infection and other infections. Fluoroquinolones (e.g., enrofloxacin) are also used in veterinary medicine. Human infections with fluoroquinolone-resistant Campylobacter species have become increasingly common and are associated with consumption of poultry. These findings, along with other data, prompted the US Food and Drug Administration to propose the withdrawal of fluoroquinolone use in poultry in 2000. A lengthy legal hearing concluded with an order to withdraw enrofloxacin from use in poultry (effective in September 2005). Clinicians are likely to continue to encounter patients with fluoroquinolone-resistant Campylobacter infection and other enteric infection because of the continued circulation of fluoroquinolone-resistant Campylobacter species in poultry flocks and in persons returning from foreign travel who have acquired a fluoroquinolone-resistant enteric infection while abroad. Judicious use of fluoroquinolones and other antimicrobial agents in human and veterinary medicine is essential to preserve the efficacy of these important chemotherapeutic agents.

Even if you and I didn’t hang out at poultry farms and get explosed to fluoroquinolone-resistant bacteria, it doesn’t matter. Those bacteria enter the environment, where they trade genes for drug resistance with other bacteria.

To overly-focus on one tiny piece of the puzzle is to miss the big picture.

Which was the point of my post. This is a huge problem that crosses all species and threatens the health and safety of all of us and our pets and livestock. It involves food safety, the revolving door between a number of industries including agribusiness and the drug companies with the agencies that regulate them.

Even if we stop misusing antibiotics personally — even if, like you, and like Kyrie herself, someone has never or rarely taken antibiotics — drug resistance is an environmental problem. And there is no question that the subtherapeutic use of antibiotics is a recipe for creating resistant organisms, whether they are given in livestock feed or the ER.

I am currently taking antibiotics for only the second time in my life and my doctor didn’t even *mention* the importance of finishing the prescription and disposing of excess drugs (the painkillers I didn’t use but had just in case) safely.

Now I know why I was getting drops for my cat’s eyes only at the cat eye specialist. I was given ointment at the regular veterinarian’s office which was extremely hard to put across the eyeball and somewhat repelling to me to touch the eye, thinking I was injuring my cat.
I suppose the vets have their problems, too.

My cat is getting better, but she still has to take interfuron for her herpes and her immune system. Poor cat, she hates it all. At least she is opening up her eye.

Kyrie looks so sick, I hope you will find sucessful treatment or treatments.

Keeping the dog still for the process? Not easy.
It can be done and I have used this method several times, the results are worth the intense one on one nursing it requires.

I hope Kyrie gets better.