I Want My KFC
An interesting article from the L.A. Times rebutting the migratory birds theory for the spread of bird flu.
The theory that industrial poultry production, that is, cheap chicken, amplifies the spread of disease among birds is hardly surprising. What happens when a sick kid comes into one of our overcrowded classrooms, or when an office worker with a bad cold "bravely" comes into work because sick days are scarce? That's why industrial "animal farms" often pump their "crops" with more antibiotics than most third world villages will get in a year. And all antibiotics will do (as in your antibacterial soap and your antibacterial tissues and your antibacterial paper towels) is breed a hardier, more evolutionary robust bacteria that will end up going through your immune system like Panzers through Poland.
Then again, antibiotics won't do anything for bird flu, which is a virus. The solution to this, they say, is vaccinate all the birds. But, if you still keep them penned in like Tokyo subway commuters at rush hour, you're just putting a Band-Aid on the gunshot wound, because viruses, hardy little bastards that they are, will mutate into something that survives.
The one thing about bird flu is that it took much of the media attention away from Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, or Mad Cow Disease. Remember that? That became a big deal because we wanted cheaper beef, so we penned cows into food farms, and to cut down on the cost of their feed, we fed them parts of their dearly departed brothers and sisters that McDonalds had trouble marketing, like brain and spine tissue, which transmitted the disease. Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy: it's what's for dinner!
And if you're a vegetarian, don't feel left out, we got something for you too. While we in the U.S. seem not to have too much of a problem eating genetically modified foods (excepting those of us who pay a premium for the flimsy security blanket of shopping at Whole Foods), our European counterparts are still having a wee bit of a problem.
Why? The GM seed companies tell us the stuff is safe, but then, they have no other allegiance except to their shareholders, and the companies have legal departments to protect themselves from any stock-crushing liability. So, just say that 20 years down the road we find that eating genetically modified foods produces some unwanted effect, like, oh, sterility, it's too late. You can't stop 20 years of cross-pollination. The genie, as they say, is out of the bottle. Some of those who developed Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, the human version of Mad Cow, because they ate infected beef didn't find out until a decade later.
So the question once again becomes: How compatible is unbridled market capitalism with the survival of the species, namely, ours?
The theory that industrial poultry production, that is, cheap chicken, amplifies the spread of disease among birds is hardly surprising. What happens when a sick kid comes into one of our overcrowded classrooms, or when an office worker with a bad cold "bravely" comes into work because sick days are scarce? That's why industrial "animal farms" often pump their "crops" with more antibiotics than most third world villages will get in a year. And all antibiotics will do (as in your antibacterial soap and your antibacterial tissues and your antibacterial paper towels) is breed a hardier, more evolutionary robust bacteria that will end up going through your immune system like Panzers through Poland.
Then again, antibiotics won't do anything for bird flu, which is a virus. The solution to this, they say, is vaccinate all the birds. But, if you still keep them penned in like Tokyo subway commuters at rush hour, you're just putting a Band-Aid on the gunshot wound, because viruses, hardy little bastards that they are, will mutate into something that survives.
The one thing about bird flu is that it took much of the media attention away from Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, or Mad Cow Disease. Remember that? That became a big deal because we wanted cheaper beef, so we penned cows into food farms, and to cut down on the cost of their feed, we fed them parts of their dearly departed brothers and sisters that McDonalds had trouble marketing, like brain and spine tissue, which transmitted the disease. Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy: it's what's for dinner!
And if you're a vegetarian, don't feel left out, we got something for you too. While we in the U.S. seem not to have too much of a problem eating genetically modified foods (excepting those of us who pay a premium for the flimsy security blanket of shopping at Whole Foods), our European counterparts are still having a wee bit of a problem.
Why? The GM seed companies tell us the stuff is safe, but then, they have no other allegiance except to their shareholders, and the companies have legal departments to protect themselves from any stock-crushing liability. So, just say that 20 years down the road we find that eating genetically modified foods produces some unwanted effect, like, oh, sterility, it's too late. You can't stop 20 years of cross-pollination. The genie, as they say, is out of the bottle. Some of those who developed Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, the human version of Mad Cow, because they ate infected beef didn't find out until a decade later.
So the question once again becomes: How compatible is unbridled market capitalism with the survival of the species, namely, ours?
posted by Doc Paradox at 12:12 PM
6 Comments:
My guess is that capitalism killing us off means that we've finally allowed it to achieve its desired effect: ridding us of all problems and difficulties. So... view this as a triumph of human ingenuity if you would, please.
Or get off the bus! ;)
Ayn Rand would be proud of you were she not dead, Soo.
Capitalism isn't a lovable puppy, but I don't think it's the root of all evil either. Man has tinkered with Nature since day one and humanity has managed to evolve; capitalism helped push that evolution too. As a medical journalist, I think the bird flu trajectory has been blown out of proportion. More people have died from cervical and lung cancer, two very, very preventable cancers; approximately 70 adults and children have died from H5N1 infection. I think part of the European reaction to GMOs is not solely a reaction to "Frankenfoods" but a response to pushy American marketing. Cross-pollination has been going on long before "GMO" became a buzz word and we have still managed to reproduce and survive as a people. Man has just accelerated things, as usual, and I think history suggests we will overall be ok. Perhaps a GMO experiment could lead to a cure for cancer? We just don't know. Yes, safeguards should be in check. Yes, corporations will take advantage of the situation. Yes, food safety will always be an issue. But these spikes in infection aren't as abnormal as they may appear and the science that contributed to it may also be the same science that heals it.
Well, a comment like that deserves a response:
I don't think capitalism is the root of all evil either. When you think about it, it's pretty amoral, and its only guiding principle is growth. The problem lies in the fact that cutting costs and ekeing out a profit margin (or making a healthy profit margin even healthier) often leads to shortsighted actions with regards to safety. The length of clinical trials to make sure some new drug works and is safer than the alternative is one of the biggest gripes for Big Pharma because a drug off the market eats into margins. They want it now. There's nothing wrong with technological advances and experimentation, as long as it's under controlled conditions. I think the fear behind GM foods and creating enormous virus factories with penned livestock is that once those living things are in the wild, you can't control them. It's not like you can issue a product recall. Nature will always try to maintain a balance by correction. The problem is that we're changing things so quickly thanks to our numbers and technology that Nature's correction will likely snap back like a rubberband and be catastrophic on a global level. Living things, especially plants and microbes (they've been here longer and evolve, that is adapt, quicker than us) are one of the most powerful and tenacious forces on this planet, and if we keep on tinkering with them in a hurry so we can make analysts' projections for the next quarter, we may be unleashing a "corrective" force that'll make nuclear weapons look like firecrackers.
Of course capitalism is not the root of all evil. It's humanity as a whole. As mentioned before, this was going on looonnnng before capitalism became in vogue. What's still a hot topic is what will replace antibiotics when all the bacteria in the world have mutated into strains that are 100% resistant to penicillin, erythromycin, tetracycline, etc.
Capitalism is nothing more than a fancy omelette. Oh what a finished product. Sorry about those eggs that had to be sacrificed.
When medical journalists meet...
Post a Comment
<< Home