Applications of Evolution 2 - Bayer Withdraws Cipro

Posted 9 September 2005 by Mike Dunford

↗ The current version of this post is on the live site: https://pandasthumb.org/archives/2005/09/applications-of-1.html

From a story in today’s WaPo, I learned that Bayer has withdrawn it’s poultry anitbiotic Baytril from the market. This marks the end of a five-year battle with the FDA over the drug.

The FDA first proposed withdrawing Baytril in October of 2000, due to concerns regarding the development of antibiotic resistance. From a 2001 FDA Consumer Magazine article:

Poultry growers use fluoroquinolone drugs to keep chickens and turkeys from dying from Escherichia coli (E. coli) infection, a disease that they could pick up from their own droppings. But the size of flocks precludes testing and treating individual chickens–so when a veterinarian diagnoses an infected bird, the farmers treat the whole flock by adding the drug to its drinking water. While the drug may cure the E. coli bacteria in the poultry, another kind of bacteria–Campylobacter–may build up resistance to these drugs. And that’s the root of the problem.

15 Comments

Joseph O'Donnell · 9 September 2005

This is brilliant news! I'm not keen on the farming industries practice of using "growth promotants", and I'm pleased to see that more and more regulatory agencies are seeing the risks of wantonly throwing medically important antibiotics everywhere. If only we could get the practice banned outright, because it's a danger to both animal and human health...

'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 9 September 2005

From a story in today's WaPo, I learned that Bayer has withdrawn it's poultry anitbiotic Baytril from the market. This marks the end of a five-year battle with the FDA over the drug.

Alas, this has an effect on a hobby that I am deeply involved with, reptile-keeping. Baytril is one of the few effective reptile-safe antibiotics. It's loss will force us into using higher-risk antibiotics.

Joseph O'Donnell · 9 September 2005

It would be better from my point of view, rather than remove the antibiotics from being sold to instead simply ban the practice of feeding them to farm animals instead. They should still be available for vetinary and such use, but they just shouldn't be mixed in with an animal feed at a (usually sub-therapeutic) dose and fed willy nilly to animals we eat.

'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 9 September 2005

It would be better from my point of view, rather than remove the antibiotics from being sold to instead simply ban the practice of feeding them to farm animals instead. They should still be available for vetinary and such use, but they just shouldn't be mixed in with an animal feed at a (usually sub-therapeutic) dose and fed willy nilly to animals we eat.

Indeed, that is what SHOULD have been done in the first place. But now that the "willy nilly" has already happened, it's too late for that.

SEF · 9 September 2005

It's pretty appalling how careless people have been with antibiotics. But then that seems to be par for the course with humans. Congenital idiocy runs strong in the species. At least it does relative to my view. Whereas an idiot might think humans are intelligent. And both might expect them to be modelled after something else that was the same way. Though, consequently, this would be with very different conclusions about what that was ...

'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 10 September 2005

It's pretty appalling how careless people have been with antibiotics. But then that seems to be par for the course with humans. Congenital idiocy runs strong in the species.

Indeed, it seems to me as if "intelligence" will, after all is said and done, turn out to be nothing but an evolutionary failure. Once we poison ourselves out of existence (or blow ourselves up), life will be able to pick itself up and start all over again, without us mucking everything up.

Edin Najetovic · 10 September 2005

And you say this why? Really, I don't see how intelligence will vanish anytime soon other than the destruction of all other life with it. But this is outrageously off topic so I'll not take it too far...

ts (not Tim) · 10 September 2005

Our extinction may seem far fetched, but suppose it were to happen, through nuclear war or an airborne fatal virus, say. How would that result in the destruction of all other life? In other words, our extinction, regardless of how unlikely, is far more likely than the extinction of all life on earth. I would think that to be obvious.

ts (not Tim) · 10 September 2005

BTW, I would have thought that, after Katrina, people might have more perspective. How long would you last if the supply trucks stopped coming? A breakdown of modern society would result in massive starvation. Throw in rising sea levels and then a severe ice age, and human extinction within a few thousand years isn't out of the question. Stretch it out to a few hundred thousand, and the odds become higher and higher, unless we escape to infest other planets, but we haven't located any inhabitable planets, let alone ones close enough to reach, and the odds of doing so before running out of the fossil fuel resources that support our technology are steadily decreasing.

'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 10 September 2005

And you say this why? Really, I don't see how intelligence will vanish anytime soon other than the destruction of all other life with it

We do have the capacity to eliminate all humans from the planet. We do NOT have the capacity to eliminate all LIFE from the planet (although we appear to be trying v ery very hard).

Russell · 10 September 2005

Our extinction may seem far fetched

I'm not trying to pick any fights here, but - given the fact that something like 99% of all species that have ever existed are now extinct - am I not thinking straight when I think the H. sapiens story is more likely to be the Rule than the Exception? I'll do what I can to prevent or at least delay it. But I do hope that my sincere belief in the probability of the eventual extinction of our species won't ruin my mental or moral health.

ts (not Tim) · 10 September 2005

Our extinction may seem far fetched I'm not trying to pick any fights here, but - given the fact that something like 99% of all species that have ever existed are now extinct - am I not thinking straight when I think the H. sapiens story is more likely to be the Rule than the Exception?

Ahem. Did I not say may, and seem, and then lay out a scenario in which we become extinct?

Russell · 10 September 2005

Alas, this has an effect on a hobby that I am deeply involved with, reptile-keeping. Baytril is one of the few effective reptile-safe antibiotics. It's loss will force us into using higher-risk antibiotics.

A few years ago I bought, and still use, ciprofloxacin (from Bayer) for research purposes. I assume that, if and when I run out, I'll be able to buy more.

Russell · 10 September 2005

I'm not trying to pick any fights here, but - given the fact that something like 99% of all species that have ever existed are now extinct - am I not thinking straight when I think the H. sapiens story is more likely to be the Rule than the Exception?

Ahem. Did I not say may, and seem, and then lay out a scenario in which we become extinct?Indeed, you did. And I suppose the fact that I quoted you as a departure point for my comment may make it seem like I was taking issue with you. But, in fact, you just reminded me that in a society where somewhere around half the population seems to feel that if we weren't specially created by "the God of the Bible", then life is meaningless, that my anticipating our extinction in the not too distant future might, if it became widely known, disqualify me from being hired as Mr. Rogers's successor. But that I'm really not such a bad guy, once you get to know me. Is all I'm saying.

ts (not Tim) · 10 September 2005

But that I'm really not such a bad guy, once you get to know me. Is all I'm saying.

I'm sure you're not. :-) But "I'm not trying to pick any fights here, but - [isn't the contrary true?]" looks a whole lot like contradiction, and if your intent isn't contradiction, you might want to consider a different way of wording things. :-)