Aleksander Mihajlovski wrote:

>> Bulgarija has launch on their market one new product (name:
>> "Biopapir") The main ingredient, or so called active substance
>> is some Russian made/discovered antibiotic called: Rifampicin.

>> Have anyone ever heard of these antibiotic (in human or livestock context)?

And Bill Truesdell answered, quoting "Apidologie 32":

> We investigated.... 27 antibiotics...
> Rifampicin was by far the most active antibiotic tested, but
> since it is used against tuberculosis, registration of this
> material for agricultural use is unlikely.

Wow, what a week for proving that "common sense"
is anything but common!

First, we read about "Urinal Cakes", and now we read about
the Bulgarians messing around with one of the few effective
defenses left against T.B.

If you have been not reading the papers for the past decade,
let me explain:

a)  Lots of drug addicts and alcoholics get tuberculosis ("T.B.")

b)  To treat the infection correctly, you have to take the antibiotics
     every day for weeks.

c)  Addicts and drunks are not very good at remembering or sticking
     to a strict schedule.  Sometimes they forget what day it is.

d)  Drug-resistant T.B. resulted.  For those of us who fly on international
     flights on a regular basis, one sees lots of folks wearing "painter's
     masks" on the plane, since it is common to send the worst T.B.
     cases to the usual "major powers" for treatment, and one never
     knows if a T.B. carrier might be on your plane.  One cough is all
     it would take, and most T.B. patients have a cough.

e)  The drug-resistant strain of T.B. is really nasty.   Rifampicin is
     one of the few drugs left that can fight it, simply because it is
     very different from the usual antibiotics.  If you don't fight T.B.,
     you die a slow, horrible death.  You live just long enough to
     infect lots of other people.

f)  T.B. kills every year in every country.  Pretty darned sad for
    something we thought was licked years ago.

What are the morons who sell this thinking of?
Are they thinking at all?

I'd rather give Bulgaria the entire remaining Soviet nuclear
weapons stockpile and a free six-pack of Saturn V booster
rockets than let them use one of the last remaining known
defenses on the planet against T.B. for anything but T.B. itself.

Ask someone who is over 60 about T.B.  Ask them to compare
a T.B. outbreak to World War II infantry in terms of odds of being
killed.

        jim

        farmageddon (Where the worst "T.B." we hope to ever
                                 encounter is Tony Bennett singing
                                 Christmas carols)