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General News Serious Problem!!! World’s rivers loaded with antibiotics.

Discussion in 'Current Events, World News, & LGBT News' started by Fishtail, May 29, 2019.

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  1. Fishtail

    Fishtail
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    The news:


    Hundreds of rivers and streams worldwide are contaminated by antibiotics.
    That shows the most comprehensive study of the problem so far.

    - 711 water samples from rivers in 72 countries on six continents have been investigated by researchers.
    One or more types of antibiotics were found in two-thirds of the samples.

    - The results are very disturbing. They show extensive pollution of the world's river systems,
    says researcher Alistair Boxall at the University of York, who has been involved in leading the research project.

    The research results that got presented at a conference in Helsinki Monday(27) shows that the
    antibiotic levels are above the limit values that got set by the pharmaceutical industry itself.

    The problems are greatest in developing countries in Asia and Africa. At a location in Bangladesh,
    concentrations of the widely used antibiotic metronidazole it were measured 300 times higher than recommended.

    But European streams are also contaminated.

    - The antibiotic levels in Europe were above the limit of 8 percent of the places they examined,
    writes the British newspaper The Guardian.

    In Europe, Danube is the most polluted river.

    In Thames, which runs through London and which is otherwise considered one of Europe's
    cleanest rivers, 5 different types of antibiotics were found.

    The pollution of the many streams can help to make bacteria resistant towads antibiotics.

    Antibiotic resistance is an incresed problem, which has gradually been gaining more attention.
    The main causes of pollution are assumed to be an improper use of antibiotics in the health service
    and in farming.

    But antibiotic contamination in nature also plays a role. This pollution comes from both the pharmaceutical
    industry, from water purification plants, and from human and animal stools and urine.

    The World Health Organization WHO has warned that more and more types of antibiotics are working poorly and that new ones are urgently needed. If new initiatives are not taken, ten million people can
    die yearly     as a result of antibiotic resistance by 2050, as the UN reported says from last month.
     
    #1 Fishtail, May 29, 2019
  2. johndeere3020

    johndeere3020
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    Completely. As farming in this country has morphed from small family farms of a few hundred acres with rotation crops such as corn, soybeans, oats, wheat, and hay and animals like dairy cows, beef cows, hogs, sheep and chickens to thousands of acres and feedlots of thousands of critters the use of antibiotics in feeds have skyrocketed in the name of the almighty dollar by sending the critter to market sooner. Livestock that wasn't even sick was given drugs to prevent sickness. Only now does one have to have a script from a vet to obtain drugs for livestock. At least in my state.

    No different with crops, there is bug killer, weed killer, nitrogen to make things grow faster. We no longer rotate crops, just beans, corn, then beans again. Crops are groan in places that were grasslands for thousands of years. The aquifer that is under most of the Midwest states is estimated to be 50% gone. Harvesters take everything leaving little or no material to cultivate back into the ground to build the earth back for the next year.

    If we don't start taking care of our planet soon we will not have to worry about population growth because nature will take care of that for us by no longer providing enough for us to eat!

    Dean
     
    #2 johndeere3020, May 31, 2019
    Last edited: May 31, 2019
  3. Nordland

    Nordland
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    China is also pumping its livestock full of antibiotics, that's a resistance timebomb waiting to happen
     
    #3 Nordland, May 31, 2019
  4. Fishtail

    Fishtail
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    We regrettably reached that point 6 years ago:
    Video 2013:

    Artikle 2017:
    https://www.newsweek.com/earth-overshoot-day-2017-climate-change-645296
    Quote: The day by which the human race has used up more natural resources than can be replenished in a year-
    known as Earth Overshoot Day —has been getting earlier for some time. But in 2017, it's come earlier than ever before. End Quote
     
    #4 Fishtail, Jun 3, 2019
  5. Chiroptera

    Chiroptera
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    This is one of the reasons why practices that involve Agroecology should be considered and popularized (like rotating crops). Prioritizing subsidies and assistance to small farms, instead of focusing on latifundium sized ones, can also be a positive thing, especially considering most huge farms are focused on huge extensions of monocultures, with the use of poison to "protect" the crops.

    Some people argue that we need to largely increase food production in the world so we can fight hunger and, therefore, these types of products are a "necessary evil". That's untrue. Yes, increasing food production can be beneficial, but the priority should be how we distribute that food. Nowadays, we have places (and people) with more than they need (which frequently ends up in a waste of food) and other places with much less than they need. Increasing food production without thinking about distribution and access to the food doesn't help much, because it maintains the waste of food in some places while struggling to reach the minimum needed to other places.

    See these numbers from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations: http://www.fao.org/save-food/resources/keyfindings/en/

    Food distribution should be key to the discussions about the theme. Repeating "oh, but we need to increase production to fight hunger!" is a lie and an oversimplification spread by companies who aren't really interested in fighting hunger, they just want to increase their profit.

    We don't need more poison and pollution to feed people, especially if we want to feed the population with quality food, and not contaminated products.

    The poisoning of our land and water is a huge problem here in Brazil, and the government recently approved 31 other types of these products, unfortunately.
     
    #5 Chiroptera, Jun 3, 2019
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