Thursday, February 28, 2008

Would you like to be special or common?

In Guter’s(2008) article entitled “Would You Like Fires With Your Clone?” he points out that clone meat and products are already entered the food supply and there is no evidence to show any problems. First, the U.S. food and Drug Administration and European Food Safety Authority both are say that the clone food is safety to eat. Second, he gives us an example and background on genetically modified (GM) foods. He says even though Europeans’ and Americans’ opinions are different, but both of them want labels on GM foods. Third, the cloned animals have the exact same DNA as the original one and the clone animals can make farmers have more money by milk and offspring because the farmers can make a copy of the high quality livestock. Fourth, the elite clone animal products are already put to the market. Fifth, even though the anti-cloning groups believe during the process of clone the DNA defects may cause problems but until now they still without evidence. In conclusion, some like clone animals and some is not, but cloning just is a new way to breeding, in author’s opinion.

Clone is big debatable issues after the scientists create “Dolly”. This sheep is a well-known sheep around the world because human produced her and she has the same DAN with the other sheep, which is not a twin to her. Scientists thought they are create a new page for technology. However it is wrong, we could see a lot of problems are following “Dolly”. Those problems involve biology, economy, and morality.

First, cloning could cause biological problems. The cloning technology may cause problem from copy DNA. Inside DNA has a lot of information about appearance and organ’s function. Normally, DNA is come from two different individuals. During combine two DNA, the new DNA could have chance to change and improve which can help animals and plants to fit the environment. However, cloning will stop this process. On the other words, cloning is an obstacle for speciation improvements. For example, if human’s DNA without chance to change, we were not the same with ape-man. In addition, cloning could make animals and plants disappear. If we just produce the valued animals, the valueless animals will disappear. For example, if farmer has three kinds of cows, the farmer will likes to clone the valued one. And the other two kinds of cows will be endangered or extinct. Cloning technology would be very dangerous for organisms.

Second, cloning could cause moral problems. Who is the mother for clone animals? For example, Dolly has the same DNA with the other sheep, but does Dolly’s parents are the same with that sheep? Parents for the sheep are not important, but if the scientists use cloning on human, it will be a big problem. In addition, clone is against nature. Generative propagation is the normal and nature way to have next generation.

Finally, cloning could cause economic problems. Many people will lose their job and market by cloning. Because cloning is a new and expensive technology, not everyone can offer it. So, the poor farmers will lose chance to compete with rich farmers. For example, the rich farmers can make huge amount of clones for their elitist livestock, so the poor and small farmers will be out from the market. In addition, clone livestock is several times price compare with sexual reproduction (the nature and normal way).

In conclusion, cloning is a new and interesting issue for a lot of people and it also sounds like great way to have a lot of high quality livestock easily. However, this unnatural way to produce life is wrong. Now, no evidence shows the disadvantages for cloning that is not means clone is a good thing. It is just because cloning is a new technology and the time is too short to know the follow-up.

How can we get by population control policies?

Do you live in a big crowded city? Do you ever feel uncomfortable about it? Do you like to travel in some small islands because there was have so many people in there and its make you feel relaxative? If your answer is yes, you should feel happy about it. Because even though you live in a crowded place, you still can find some place to relax your mind and pressure. Unfortunately, your descendants could not enjoy it anymore, if human population continues to increase. We should do something to prevent the tragedy from happening. How can we prevent it from happening? The population control policies are a good decision. There are some good reasons.

First, population control policies can save our environment. Population control policies can save a lot of natural resource. So, if population could be decreased, we would not need so much wood for paper, gasoline for cars, fuel for energy, and land for humans to live. The forests can be saved and some endangered animals can safely stay in their habitat. In addition, global warming can be controlled. If we can save energy for cars, air conditioners, heaters, and lights. It can decrease the amount of carbon dioxide, so the temperature can descend and desertification can be go into remission. Humans are the only group who overuses natural resources, breaks ecological systems, and pollutes our environment. If population continues to increase, the environmental problems will become more and more serious, and the result is human will be disrupted by ourselves, just like the movie “The day after tomorrow”.

Second, population control is good for our society. Students can get more of higher quality education. For example, when class members are from 50 students become 25, students can get more attention from the teachers and resources form the school than before. And if every family just has one to two children, parents can pay more attention to take care and teach their children. For example, when they watch violent news and TV programs, the parents can tell their children what is wrong about the violent behaviors and also teach them the correct ways to deal with bad situation. By the way, the crime rate will decrease because children know the correct ways to deal with problems. Population control policies is a good way stabilize our society. If everyone can grow up by love, get enough education, find a good job, and do not need to worry about their life, our society will become safer because no one needs to fight for their life.

The last reason for population control policies is health. The medical resources can be used better. When you see a doctor, how long you can talk with her or him? The doctors are always busy because they have too many patients. As the result, every patient just can get 5 to 10 minutes per time. The same about nursing services, if one nurse has to take care about 15 patients, the services will worst than one nurse who just needs take care about 7 patients. Population control policies have the other way to influence your health, it is through on food. People need food to live but farmers are difficult to produce huge amount foods for humans by traditional way. So, scientists found a way to produce food bigger and quickly, that is genetically-modified foods. But recently more and more people worry about genetically-modified foods because scientists use different genes to change the food. If people have allergy for the genes which the scientists used to produce genetically-modified foods, they will also have allergy for that kind of genetically-modified foods. Until now, we still could not know how the genetically-modified foods will influence our health and earth because the genetically-modified foods are new technologic products. Genetically-modified foods are produce by the amount that humans need, but if we do not need so much food, we do not need genetically-modified foods and their useless either. Health is an important thing that everyone needs to take seriously. Beautiful life is built by good healthy condition. Population control policies can offer a good environment for your physical condition.

Opponents of population control policies say that single child will miss some social skills and they may have trouble working with others. However, this criticism is untrue because when a family just has one to two children, the children can have higher quality of life. Trying to imagine a situation, there have two families they have the came income and house space, one of them has five children and the other just has two, which family can get better quality of life. The answer is easy to see, the family which has two children can has better life. Those children not only do not need to share the space and food with so many siblings but also can get more love, attention, care, and resources of mental support and education opportunity. The parents also can get high quality life because they just need to focus on two children and after those children grow up, they can have their personal life again. Children of smaller families are not the same meaning with lower social skills, children also can learn a lot of social skills from communicating with their parents, relatives, friends, and teachers. Population control policies are good methods to raise human’s life quality.

In conclusion, population control policies are very important to protect our life and environment. Do you ever think about what will happen when human population keeps growing and the natural resources are exhausted? Your grandchildren or grand-grandchildren may not have gasoline for cars, wood for paper, land for life, and even farms for foods. Population control policies might not the only way to protect this, but population control policies are the most powerful way to do that. If we can execute Population control policies, even though our family members will become smaller, they can get higher quality life.

Farmers’ Gifts

Every time, when you choose meat, what do you looking for? Everyone is looking for is the fresh meat, how much fat on it, how much cholesterol is there per serving, and how much protein inside. You could get not only what you see but also could get some special gifts, which people may not like, from the farmers. Those gifts are antibiotics and their friends, resistance bacteria. They could affect people’s health condition a lot but you could not know from meat’s appearance and nutrition fact list. However, those unobserved microorganisms would not mean they are not important. In fact, antibiotics use in livestock could affect livestock’s and human’s health and socioeconomic system.

According to Bud (2005), “The discovery of an antibacterial factor in the exudates if the Penicillium mould by Alexander Fleming in 1928 was therefore not totally unexpected…but two new developments in the late 1930s engendered more enthusiansm for the antibiotic approach to medicine….Erythromicin and vancomycin were developed by Eli Lilly in the 1950s…Some of these, such as ampicillin (1961) and later amoxicillin, were broad-spectrum like tetracycline. Before even ampicillin, however, in 1960 Beecham and Bristol brought out meticillin (methicillin)”(paras. 3,12,13). In the past, antibiotics really had high cure rate. Unfortunately, now they cause a big problem: “resistance”. “Antibiotic resistance is the ability of bacteria or other microbes to resist the effects of an antibiotic. Antibiotic resistance occurs when bacteria change in some way that reduces or eliminates the effectiveness of drugs, chemicals, or other agents designed to cure or prevent infections. The bacteria survive and continue to multiply causing more harm” (“About Antibiotic Resistance” 2006, para. 3). It means when the farmers use antibiotics in livestock carelessly, the resistance will happen easily. Moreover the resistance bacteria transfer from livestock to human by eating. When a person eat meat which has resistance bacteria and gets ill, this person may has problem with antibiotics therapy (“Antibiotics Debate Overview” 2008, para. 4). Now, when we use more and more antibiotics in livestock, we are making more and more resistance germs. In the future, antibiotics will not work.

First, misuse antibiotics in livestock would make veterinarian misdiagnosis or delay the best time to treat livestock. For example, when farmer treats cow’s diarrhea by antibiotics, it could delay the best time to treat food poisoning. Diarrhea is one symptom for food poisoning and it also is the first symptom. If veterinarian could treat food poisoning as soon as he or she can, the complications could be less and the healing could be easier. However, if farmers just treating the diarrhea, it will hides the real problem. In addition, misuse of antibiotics could cause antibiotics resistance by overuse. For example, when one of cows has an infection, the farmers may feed all cows antibiotics to prevent them getting infection. It could cause the bacterium became resistance bacterium. To misuse antibiotics in livestock could just kill livestock by misdiagnosis, but resistance which is caused by overuse could kill people.
Second, using antibiotics in livestock influences human’s health because they eat the meat. Human could get resistance bacteria by eating livestock. For example, when human eat the meat, which had resistance bacterium for penicillin, the resistance bacteria could into human’s body. If human get sick by this resistance bacterium, the penicillin will not work on this person (“Antibiotics Debate Overview” 2008, para. 4). However, the resistance bacteria are not just making people sick, it also could kill people. According to Wegener (2005), “These bacteria (Salmonella and Campylobacter) cause an estimated 200 million infections, primarily diarrhea, worldwide each year; most of these infections originate from animals” (para.4). In addition, people who have allergy to antibiotics would also have allergy for the meat that has antibiotic inside. For example, a patient who has allergy by penicillin would have allergy for the meat, for livestock which were fed by penicillin. Using antibiotics in livestock is a kind of poison for human’s health and even it will kill humans.

Finally, using antibiotics in livestock would affect social-economy by two ways. One is farmers use a lot of antibiotics in livestock. According to “ Abuse of Antibiotics at Factory Farms Threatens the Effectiveness of Drugs Used to Treat Disease in Humans”(2007), “Twenty-five million pounds of antibiotics are fed to American livestock annually” (para. 3) If farmers can save this money, they could modify their livestock to produce better offspring and products such like milk and cheese. The other is the huge amount of money used to treat resistance bacteria. Today, we have more and more resistance bacteria around the world. In the other words, more and more antibiotics are losing their efficacy in people. “As the result, for example, increased drug resistance has raised the annual national cost of treating ear (human’s) infections by an estimated 20 percent, or $216 million” (Laxminarayan, Malani, Howard, & Smith, 2007, p. 7). If we can save that money which is spent on antibiotics use and research, we could improve our social services and medical care.

Opponents of anti-using antibiotics in livestock claim that antibiotics could help them take care livestock easier and also can get more produce such like milk and eggs. However, it is a wrong and old opinion. Using antibiotics in livestock is not necessary. According to Wegener (2005), Europe-wide farmers have stops using antibiotics in livestock for five years. During these years, the farmers just had a few and not serious problems and also have increased their produce. This new agriculture revolution could be a better way to care for livestock than feeding them antibiotics which the farmers used in the past (para.7). As the technology keep developing, some old and no longer useful agricultural method like using antibiotics in livestock should be replaced.

In conclusion, these days, the public may not pay attention to how to use antibiotics or how many antibiotics they have misused. However, in the medical systems, which include human and animal, the scientists and doctors are facing a serious problem: antibiotic resistance. If people could not stop using antibiotics to cure diseases, in the least, people should avoid taken any extra and unnecessary antibiotics. This is the only way to reduces or moderates antibiotic resistance In our environment, people were suffering from many toxins like water and air pollution, and global warming. So, why people are still want to find the other way to poison their health condition by using antibiotics in livestock. People should think serious about our food; antibiotic free livestock could be a beginning. Health is the worthiest property that everyone should have.