[gwt561324]

80% of the antibiotics used in the US are used in agriculture because they make up 80% of the mass. Dosage is based on weight, and it's purely a question of mass, not a choice between animals or people.

I also think your billion is wrong. According the Union of Concerned Scientists, the 30 billion was the cost of the antibiotics, not the weight. The antibiotics weighed 24 million pounds. Besides, what does the total mass have to do with prudent use? If I said we used 100 billion pounds to save people, would you consider that acceptable?

You also need to put that number in context. In 2010, American meat companies produced: 26.4 billion pounds of beef 22.5 billion pounds of pork 5.8 billion pounds of turkey 313 million pounds of veal, lamb and mutton 37.2 billion pounds of chicken

Finally, there is no clear evidence that the proper use of antibiotics in food animals has ever led to a disease resistant bacteria in humans. Don't you find it much more alarming that your GP will prescribe antibiotics to common visitors just to get them out the door? It's far more likely you're going to die purely because someone next to you won't leave the doctor until they get an antibiotic, regardless of their health status.

[mynewwork]

I realize I'm responding to an account created today, which has already posted multiple pro-antibiotic comments, so I understand that gwt561324 likely has a strong vested interest in this and is likely not a regular HN member.

But I would like to point out the final paragraph here is pure FUD rhetoric. "Don't you find it much more alarming", "It's far more likely" (with no evidence to support claim).

The problem here isn't how frequently antibiotics used in agriculture cause resistance, it's the scale of the problem once they do. Sub-prime mortgage derivatives were traded millions of times without a problem, but once the system broke things got very bad very fast. That's the best analogy I can think of for antibiotic resistance, there is a massive systemic risk, being ignored for short-term profits.