In Brief... World News Review: Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria On the Rise
Drug-resistant infections increasing.
NEW YORK - Faced with mounting evidence that the routine use of antibiotics in livestock may diminish the drugs' power to cure infections in people, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has begun a major revision of its guidelines for approving new antibiotics for animals and for monitoring the effects of old ones.
The goal of the revision is to minimize the emergence of bacterial strains that are resistant to antibiotics. Such resistance makes them difficult or even impossible to kill.
Drug-resistant infections, some fatal, have been increasing in people in the United States, and many scientists attribute the problem to the misuse of antibiotics in both humans and animals. Of particular concern to scientists is that recent studies have found bacteria in chickens that are resistant to fluoroquinolones, the most recently approved class of antibiotics and one that scientists had been hoping would remain effective a long time.
A crucial component of the new guidelines will be the requirement that manufacturers test certain new livestock drugs for a tendency to foster the growth of resistant bacteria that could prove harmful to people. Testing will be required both before a drug is approved and after.
The use of antibiotics as growth stimulators in livestock is a concern of many consumer groups in America. The fear that resistance to disease and bacteria can be reduced in the human population has lead the European Union to ban the use of human antibiotics in livestock production.
Many scientists believe that giving low doses of antibiotics to animals over long periods brings out resistance. Scientists say that resistant bacteria from animals can make people sick in several ways. A person can become ill from contact with an animal carrying a disease-causing resistant germ, or from handling contaminated meat or eating it when it has not been cooked enough to kill the bacteria. The infection may be difficult or even impossible to treat.
In some cases, the resistant bacteria may themselves be harmless, but live on in the gut and cause trouble later by passing their genes for antibiotic resistance to other bacteria, ones that do cause disease. Or, if a person's immune system is weakened by illness or chemotherapy, the otherwise harmless bacteria can turn dangerous.
At the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, researchers said they had been detecting increases in the levels of drug-resistant bacteria found in people with gastrointestinal illness from the microbes salmonella and campylobacter, which are most commonly contracted from contaminated meat or eggs (International Herald Tribune).
An Article from:
World News and Prophecy: April - May 1999
Course Content
Darris McNeely
Darris McNeely works at the United Church of God home office in Cincinnati, Ohio. He and his wife, Debbie, have served in the ministry for more than 43 years. They have two sons, who are both married, and four grandchildren. Darris is the Associate Media Producer for the Church. He also is a resident faculty member at the Ambassador Bible Center teaching Acts, Fundamentals of Belief and World News and Prophecy. He enjoys hunting, travel and reading and spending time with his grandchildren.
David Palmer
Born in Saskatchewan Canada, David Palmer was first introduced to the radio broadcast of the World Tomorrow during his career in broadcasting, when the program was aired during his on air shift. In 1965 his radio career took him to Vancouver British Columbia, where he was eventually baptized, and began attending Sabbath services. He was ordained to the ministry in 1983. Now retired from broadcasting David currently pastors congregations in Vancouver, and Vancouver Island. He is also a member of the UCG-Canada National Council, and serves on the Canadian Ministerial Services Team, as well as the Canadian Media Team
John Ross Schroeder
John died on March 8, 2014, in Oxford, England, four days after suffering cardiac arrest while returning home from a press event in London. John was 77 and still going strong.
Some of John's work for The Good News appeared under his byline, but much didn't. He wrote more than a thousand articles over the years, but also wrote the Questions and Answers section of the magazine, compiled our Letters From Our Readers, and wrote many of the items in the Current Events and Trends section. He also contributed greatly to a number of our study guides and Bible Study Course lessons. His writing has touched the lives of literally millions of people over the years.
John traveled widely over the years as an accredited journalist, especially in Europe. His knowledge of European and Middle East history added a great deal to his articles on history and Bible prophecy.
In his later years he also pastored congregations in Northern Ireland and East Sussex, and that experience added another dimension to his writing. He and his wife Jan were an effective team in our British Isles office near their home.
John was a humble servant who dedicated his life to sharing the gospel—the good news—of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God to all the world, and his work was known to readers in nearly every country of the world.
