Hi guys! I found some super interesting links of Agricultural Pollution to how it affects human health!
This was one of the more interesting things I have discovered from researching about this category of pollution. Instead of the normal simplistic direct harms to humans, Agricultural Pollution can result in the Antibiotic Resistance of humans! :O
So for this case, it isn’t the normal form of pollution where contaminants contaminate our environment, but instead we are eating contaminated meat directly!
I drew out a diagram to depict the process:
Food Chain!
As you can see from the above food chain, an unassuming simple process where nobody would ever question links to antibiotic resistance!
Agricultural rearing of animals has been around for ages. Animals have been used for consumption or for other purposes such as wool or leather. However, many farmers inject their animals in their farmland with human antibiotics to fight against potential viruses or illnesses that their herd may get. This is a common practice, the antibiotics would remain within the animals even till death and consumption. Many bacteria then start developing a form of resistance to the antibiotics as they are exposed to them when the animals are not sick, misusing the antibiotics. When us humans (being the end of the food chain) consume the meat of the animal we are in fact consuming the antibiotic resistant bacteria! These bacteria can even teach other bacteria to be resistant to antibiotics. This means that bacteria that could have been treated by antibiotics might have developed resistance because of our misuse of antibiotics and our consumption of polluted meat!
A quote on a paragraph I read (link referenced below), “The researchers suggest that developing nations should take action to restrict the use of human antibiotics in farm animals… Otherwise, the unrestricted use of antibiotics in even greater numbers of animals raised for human consumption could lead to the global spread of infectious bacteria that are increasingly difficult to treat.”.
Isn’t this an alarming quote from researchers!! With COVID-19 spreading violently around our little globe, could our irresponsibility to take future proactive measures result in the cause for our future sufferings?
Here’s a video for a official explanation from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC):
References:
Princeton University. “Antibiotic resistance in food animals nearly tripled since 2000.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 9 October 2019. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/10/191009132321.htm>.
Lindwall, C., 2019. Industrial Agricultural Pollution 101. [online] NRDC. Available at: <https://www.nrdc.org/stories/industrial-agricultural-pollution-101> [Accessed 7 July 2020].
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 2019. Antibiotic Resistance And Food. [image] Available at: <https://youtu.be/o0goMAutjEM> [Accessed 24 July 2020].