Article 1: Antibiotic Resistance 101
I found this document really wonderful. It was easy to read and got across key facts about the abundance of antibiotics being forced upon our agriculture. Based on the format of this document, I wonder if it is a policy brief? The layout reminded me of documents we looked at in my Health Policy class last semester. The "Recommendations" section was particularly interesting; I very much liked that the author called upon Congress to initiate change but wanted to see more suggestions that the general consumer could get behind to try and bring about change.
Article 2: Nearby Livestock May Raise 'Superbug' Risk
I found this article to be disturbing - but not necessarily new information to me. The MRSA staph bacteria has been in the news for some time now and I've discussed it before with friends and family. It really is frightening to think about all the antibiotics being pumped into agriculture and how that fact then comes back to haunt us as 'superbug's emerge that are drug-resistant. I appreciated that the end of the article briefly stated that the study found an association, but no cause-and-effect relationship. I don't think there is/was any need to argue/prove the cause-and-effect point when the association is so strong.
Article 3: Antimicrobial Wipes and Soaps
I appreciated the writing style of this article! It was fun and easy to read - this made it fun to follow along as the author told us about the problems of triclosan. This article reminded me of new moms arguing on the playground about whether or not they should "let their kids eat dirt". One young mom explains that eating dirt will strengthen their child's immune system, while the other disagrees and believes the dirt will be the cause of illness. I think the author (and me as well) would side with the mom in favor of a little dirt being okay in their child's lives.
Article 4: Antimicrobials and the Manufacturing of Hospital Furnishings
Ah! Another policy brief! Easy to read and always informative! One new and interesting thing I learned from this article was that copper has antimicrobial properties. This struck me as really interesting, especially since (according to this article) this phenomenon is not entirely understood. If copper was not toxic in high concentrations, this metal could be a helpful tools for hospital furnishings. Along similar lines, Zinc is another interesting option for hospital manufacturing but this metal also falls short as it is not enough on its own to provide a safe hospital environment.
Hi Alex,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your thoughts on these articles! I also found the second article quite disturbing. There definitely needs to be a reevaluation by the FDA regarding what is pumped into our agriculture and how much is okay.
Funny that you mentioned the dirt eating because when I was little I actually ate dirt and would hide it from people! One day, my mom saw me doing it and I was scared that she was going to get mad but surprisingly she didn't! She told me that was part of being a kid and experiencing nature. I haven't done it in years but sometimes I wonder how I would react if I see my future child eat dirt.
ReplyDeleteResponse: Brianna
ReplyDeleteI feel like we had a lot of the same take-aways from these articles. Its pretty insane how microbes can pose such a huge public health risk. I also thought the focus of the second article (agriculture) was cause for some serious red-flag warnings - we now know better than ever that MRSA can do serious harm to population health.
Response: Brianna
Thank you for sharing about our desire to be "pre-cautious"with regard to using disinfectant wipes! I think you fall in line with a lot of folks in our communities who are trying to do a good thing to protect themselves and their families by using these strong disinfectants. The problem then becomes that we run the risk of creating these super bugs which are resistant to our sanitation efforts - yikes!