Letter

In response to Global collapse

Killing with chooks

Mark Macdonald is perfectly correct that antibiotic resistance (ABR) is a major threat to the human future.

Unfortunately, even with the generous allocation of word space in Pearls & Irritations, it is not possible to enumerate every case of purblind, human stupidity. Some have to be taken as read!

That said, ABR is sure to kill an awful lot of people come the mid-century, especially if we continue to use antibiotics just to create heavier chooks and fatter pigs, while carefully nurturing the zoonotic pestilences of the future.

Indeed, we could regard ABR as a byproduct of the industrial food industry, which doesn’t care who (or what) it kills, so long as it is profitable to do so.

— Julian Cribb from Canberra, ACT