Monday, May 10, 2010

Mother's Day

A day late and several dollars short... but Happy Mother's Day. I hope you had a great time yesterday. I did. We vaccinated and identified some calves for the neighbors. It was a good time but it also reminded me of something. Here we were helping the neighbors immunize their calves against diseases. The same as a parent would get their child immunized. Hmmm...

Also, if the child becomes sick we treat them with antibiotics. Do doctors sometimes prescribe antibiotics to children with viral infections just to make a mother happy? Perhaps. Could this be contributing to antibiotic resistant strains? Probably. More than subtherapuetic use of antibiotics in beef cattle? I don't know. I do know that the beef industry took a huge hit from mass media jumping on the bandwagon. I saw one article that listed antibiotic residues found in meat, one of which was flunixin meglumine.

There is several issues with the article but I just want to take the instance of flunixin meglumine being listed. First, if withdrawal times are followed for any antibiotic there should be no residues in the meat. Second and Last, flunixin meglumine is NOT an antibiotic! Wow, now that was some good reporting. Flunixin meglumine is an nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug or NSAID. Same category as aspirin, acetometophin (Tylenol) or Ibuprofen. Reporters need to be held responsible for making true statements.

Educate don't Alienate.

1 comment:

  1. *frown*

    I am not a fan of reporters anyway. I work in law enforcement and we are required to write up public news releases. Even with it written directly in front of them they get it wrong and that does not even begin to touch the "journalistic license" they take during hearings and trials. I take a cup of salt with anything I read in the news anymore. It might be .based. on the truth but is mostly geared to sensationalism for selling purposes.

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