According to a report by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), published in October 2013, two million American adults and children become infected with antibiotic-resistant bacteria each year. At least 23,000 of them die as a direct result of those infections and even more die from related complications.
Where did these antibiotic resistant strains come from? We unintentionally created them! Strains of antibiotic resistant bacteria evolve through the liberal use of antibiotics. By using antibiotics, we kill off the bacteria that are vulnerable to the drug and the bacteria that are resistant do not die. Those surviving bacteria have free reign and can then multiply. The result is a more resistant strain.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has repeatedly has ignored "modern" factory farming practices where antibiotics are routinely fed to animals, which leads to antibiotic-resistant disease.
Find out what's happening in Ramseyfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
Both penicillin and tetracyclines are used in human medicine, but about half of the total sales for these two antibiotics end up in animal feed. An estimated 80% of all antibiotics sold in the US end up in livestock. The impact of agricultural antibiotics on human disease is quite significant and cannot be ignored.
Unless you're eating organically raised meats, every piece of meat you eat will give you a small dose of antibiotics. The CDC has previously concluded that as much as 22% of antibiotic-resistant illness in humans is linked to food and research has shown that nearly half of all meats sold in the US harbor drug-resistant bacteria!
Find out what's happening in Ramseyfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
Most of the meat sold in American grocery stores and restaurants comes from confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs), which can house tens of thousands of animals under one roof. This can result in unsanitary, disease-ridden conditions that can allow foodborne pathogens to flourish.
Your Kitchen May Be a Major Source of Drug-Resistant Pathogens
To avoid cross-contamination with other foods and spread of potentially harmful bacteria:
1. Use a designated cutting board for raw meat and poultry and never use this board for other food preparation, such as cutting up vegetables. Color coding your cutting boards is a simple way to distinguish between them.
2. To sanitize your cutting board, be sure to use hot water and detergent. Simply wiping it off with a rag will not destroy the bacteria.
3. For an inexpensive, safe, and effective kitchen counter and cutting board sanitizer, use 3% hydrogen peroxide and vinegar. Keep each liquid in a separate spray bottle, and then spray the surface with one, followed by the other, and wipe off .
4. Coconut oil can also be used to clean, treat, and sanitize your wooden cutting boards. It's a powerful destroyer of all kinds of microbes, from viruses to bacteria to protozoa. Olive oil is another alternative. The fats will also help condition the wood.
Antibacterial Detergents Can Do More Harm Than Good:
If you're using commercially available antibacterial detergents to clean your kitchen or wash your hands, you may actually be causing far more harm than good. Triclosan, a potent antibacterial and antifungal agent used in a large number of everyday products such as soaps, detergents, toothpaste, deodorants and antiperspirants and other cosmetics. Triclosan has been around for about three decades and can now even be found in clothing and children's toys. It is so widely used; it's even been detected in human blood, urine and breast milk. Unfortunately, this excessive use of triclosan is also spurring the proliferation of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
Besides promoting drug-resistant bacteria, triclosan has also been found to have both estrogenic and androgenic activity and has been linked to hormone disruption in animals.
Also Beware of Common Allergen in Disinfectant Wipes:
If you use disinfectant wipes, beware that many of the products on the market (whether they're designed to disinfect or not) can contain a preservative called methylisothiazolinone (MI), which can cause serious allergic reactions. While initially thought to be safe, it was only after it became widely used that it was discovered it could easily be one of the very worst preservatives on the market.
For More Information: