As long as we strive for finger lickin’ good experience, there will be unethical practices to meet so. In 2021 alone, 132.3 million tons of poultry meat was consumed. You might wonder what the issue is here. Well, for that 132.3 million tons of meat, around 99,502 tonnes of antibiotics were used. So, there lies a problem, and the situation worsens when almost no pharmaceutical company has developed new antibiotics in the past few decades.
Result: ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE
Let’s take it from the top. What are antibiotics? They are the agents that help the body fight off bacterial infections. They either kill the bacteria or stop them from multiplying. Now, not all bacteria are harmful. There are trillions of bacteria in our gut, forming what is commonly known as the gut microbiota, which produces essential nutrients, like specific vitamins (biotin B7, Folate B9, and cobalamin B12), that the body needs. So, when you’re sick, the antibiotic you consume to fight off bacteria also destroys the good ones in the gut microbiota. And we all know how many times our sputum was tested for bacterial infection whenever we had flu. Almost NEVER!
According to the 2021 WHO report, there are 44.5 skilled health workers in India per 10,000 population. Maybe the problem goes deeper than the availability of doctors that we are never properly tested before given a weeklong antibiotic course, which we sometimes don’t follow. And when these agents(antibiotics) are overused or not taken correctly, the bacteria might survive like the villains learn to withstand the superagents’ attacks. Similarly, the same story follows when treating for viral infections. It’s like sending agents to fight an enemy they can’t defeat.
Every year more than 1.2 million people die because of these hunky bacteria, and the free gym membership we are providing them with antibiotics. Notably, 20% are in children of age less than five years.
Moving onto the more critical dimension of antibiotic resistance, the mechanization of livestock. Do you know antibiotics are not only used to treat bacterial infections but also to promote growth in animals? Here, the phrase the thicker, the better does more harm than any good. So, in a broader context, every animal is getting antibiotics, and sometimes, bacteria undergo changes or mutations in their genetic makeup, just like in humans with irrational use, developing resistance and passing the same abilities to their offspring.
What next?
When we consume such juicy meat products, the gym freak bacteria bring their resistance with them, beating our immune system down. Since this is a typical case of demand and supply essentially meeting profits, ethics must take a back seat. The least we could do is reduce the long-distance transfer of animals to avoid the next PANDEMIC, less crowded farms, and, lastly, acknowledge the issue’s importance. Talking about human use, we should always finish the antibiotic course prescribed by the doctors and, at the same time, urge them to examine the presence of bacteria with disease-specific tests.
P.S: Ancient Egyptians used to apply moldy bread to treat infected wounds, but it was not before 1928 Alexander Fleming discovered the first proper antibiotic, “mould juice,” and on 7 March 1929, he named it penicillin.
grewal 