I received a private email in response to my post on TM resistant
AFB that sums up the feelings and thoughts of many on the use of
antibiotics in beekeeping. Since it is a very good summation, I
quote with my comments below...
> regarding the use of antibiotics in beekeeping: NOT! I
> am totally against the use of TM or anyother antibiotic in
> beekeeping. I consider the use of antibiotics as an excuese for
> slappy handling of of our bees and bee products. The use of TM and
> other antibiotics in our beekeeping practices is accomplishing only
> one thing: fostering germ resistance! Soon there might be an
> epidemic that no antibiotic on Earth will be able to control unless
> people like you and I take the necessary precautions to prevent it.
> Stop using ANTIBIOTICS and start using common sense and excellent
> housekeeping techniques. There is no substitute for good old CLEAN,
> good hygienic practices. Any beekeeper who suspects AFB should not
> take any chances whatsoever. Immediate sterilization of equipment
> (burning if necessary) is called for. Total erradication of one or
> two colonies most likely will prove more economic than treatment
> with antibiotics.
This makes a lot of sense. However, I personally feel that
regardless of what you or I may do in this regard, the future of
antibiotics is already decided. It was decided from the day that the
first antibiotics were discovered and released into use. Regardless
the fact that many or most individuals would use them responsibly --
or not at all -- others were bound to use them in a fashion that was
bound to result in the development of resistant strains of bacteria.
*Perhaps* attempting to stictly control such drugs would extend the
useful life, but there is a cost/benefit analysis that comes into
play in all such decisions. It's the old economic question of the
optimal rate at which to consume vs. conserve. By severely curbing
the distribution of these powerful agents it might be possible to
have the full use of them at some projected future date, but in the
meantime, we would lose many lives, agricultural production, etc.
Since events and economic value becomes much more uncertain as we
look into the future, it is prudent to discount a projected future
increasingly as it becomes more distant.
After all, suppose we were able to keep all antibiotics useful for
500 years by denying your child, or mine (or people in a distant
country) the use of the drug, BUT all life on earth were
extinguished by a direct meteor hit 125 years from now. We would
have been saving it for nothing and missed a chance to do much good
for many. Or, to choose a more likely example, suppose we saved the
drugs by allowing losses of life and productivity in the 1990's, only
to find that some research that appears currently to be out in left
field, like psychic research, came up with a method of disease
control that used *no* drugs. All the drug potential that was saved
at great cost in lives, production and suffering would be instantly
worthless! Don't forget the technologies we now enjoy were
*unthinkable* to most people 50 years ago, and their most prized
possessions are now very often unwanted curiosities, sitting in a
museum, junk store or dump. (Have you used a buggy whip lately? It
was an everyday necessity for many a century ago).
Moreover, let's just suppose that the future inventor of this amazing
projected new technology to replace drugs died in infancy because
someone withheld an antibiotic during a childhood illness because
he/she did not qualify for legal use of the drug, or maybe did not
live in a developed country!
In a large world with many jurisdictions, the use of many popular
technologies, once perfected, has proven impossible to control. If
you doubt that, consider how powerless software and entertainment
developers have been in trying to keep their products from being
duplicated without their consent, or how powerless authorities have
been in keeping obviously *harmful* drugs out of circulation. Do we
know where all the USSR's nuclear warheads went?
I personally believe that, since the days of usefulness are already
numbered and that your relatively responsible use -- and mine -- are
unlikely to affect the future of the drugs, that we have to exclude
this arguement from our *personal* decision on whether to use the
drug or not and decide the matter on other factors.
Eradication, while seeming a logical solution, does not work as often
in practice as it does in our dreams, and it very often leads to some
very arbitrary and repressive actions that result in much more harm
to some few than the expected benefits for the many. It must be
considered as part of any integrated approach, but it most often
turns out to be merely a rearguard attempt to slow an inevitable
spread, since by the time the threat is identified, the horse is out
of the barn. Locking the gate is pointless.
For eradication to work, the threat must be easily identified,
easily isolated, and subject to verifyable destruction. Moreover it
must ocur in a host or environment which are not affected by
eradication or which people do not value, or else political factors
will make it impossible to carry out the destruction of the pest.
People will conceal prized possessions that are infected, or block
implementation. Many new infections are invisible in the early
(infective) stages, and difficult to verify absolutely.
There are some things where your personal decision or mine will
affect the future of mankind (possibly), however the use of drugs in
beekeeping is not one of them. Moreover, the resistant strains of
many bacteria are *already* out there and the most effective and
sensible action will be to contain them using hygienic measures, new
technologies, and yes, any available antibiotics, while continuing to
profit from what lifetime is left in the existing drugs available to
us.
FWIW
Regards
Allen
W. Allen Dick, Beekeeper VE6CFK
RR#1, Swalwell, Alberta Canada T0M 1Y0
Internet:[log in to unmask] & [log in to unmask]
Honey. Bees, & Art <http://www.internode.net/~allend/>
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