screw human rights - China is a menace to humanity!

[Az]

It isn't, but IIRC, the US still has the largest amounts of carbon monoxide, sulphur, etc. Ammonia China may have more off, but I though the US had the largest share of the rest.

Don't want to get into the thread, but CO, SO2, and ammonia aren't real problematic. not even particles are, in the global sense. In the global sense, water pollution, and heavy metals come into play more.

[Last Conformist]

China is big on aerosols, which is taking a severe toll on Chinese lungs.

Coal plants without filters

[mindseye]

Probably part of this (especially the gov't manual) is not so much wanton disregard for world health than ignorance, incompetance, lack of available information, lack of responsibility, etc.

However, even if fully-informed, I have little doubt farmers would not make pretty much the same decision. Just as they have with GM rice which is already "illegally" making its ways into Chinese fields.

In mainland Chinese culture, personal profit takes primacy over public welfare. There really is no question on the matter. In China, it is simply normal to think that way.

[Drake Tungsten]

In mainland Chinese culture, personal profit takes primacy over public welfare.

Confucius would be proud.

[Bosh]

Originally posted by Last Conformist
China is big on aerosols, which is taking a severe toll on Chinese lungs.

Coal plants without filters

Being down-wind from such coal plants
Getting dust blown in your face as a result of idiotic Chinese agricultural practices and resulting erosion

[Gatekeeper]

2012, baby, 2012!

[DaShi]

Originally posted by Combat Ingrid
Kuci, there's also plenty of unnecessary use of antibiotics on humans: http://www.iatrogenic.org/library/antibioticlib.html
(picture refers to the situation in the US)

You can buy many antibiotics without a prescription at local drugs stores here. I may still buy some penicillin as a future museum piece.

But remember, China is a developing country, so we should all just look the other way.

[Mr. Harley]

The two worst cases of drug misuse threatening the rest of the world come in two flavors - US and now Chinese agricutural policies, and abuse of antibiotics as a quick pallitive in modern health care systems coupled with the mostly third world problem of the treatment of human infections requiring intensive drug therapy.

Besides the Chinese creating a pre-pandemic drug resistance ancestor as the basis of the next human version of the Avian flu virus, they have some unique culinary habits that very well may have given us SARS (civets and the various wild animal markets) which was a hideous close call. The US has already changed several millenia of human eating habits (no more rare beef) by developing a deadly form of E.coli that resulted from our feedlot practive of low doses of antibiotics that result in slightly cheaper beef (drugged food causes the cattle to put on weight slightly faster).

The problem is that constant low doses of an antibiotic is the textbook way to produce antibiotic resistant strains of a bacteria. Guess what. 0157:H7 E.coli is resistant to many antibiotics. And the US government, under pressure from farm lobbyists, consistantly over a period of decades refused to do a damn thing about. Both political parties. Just so you know, this is proof the unregulated free markets can indeed to dangerous to your health.

The other posters chart on the misuse of antibiotics in the US pretty much deals with the issue of overuse of antibiotics in industrial countries. However, just as big a danger, if not bigger, is the use of over-the-counter antibiotics in third world countries. People take just enough pills to feel better, and stop purchasing once they do. You end up not killing off the entire infection, and the next person exposed to these new bacteria discovers they are now antibiotic resistant.

It's even worse with TB. That requires months of intensive drug therapy, and in the third world many people simply don't take the entire course of drugs but take however much they can afford. Then they run out of money, get sick again, and start the treatment again. This has resulted in untreatable versions of TB that have fatality rates of around 80%. The problems of people with mental illness who are street people with TB in the US is similiar, it is VERY difficult to get a schitzophrenic bag lady to continue taking the drug once she feels better.

A similiar dynamic exists with AIDS, and the worst drug resistant versions are coming out of poorer countries. Even the new drugs at $1 per day out of India are too expensive for many of the poor across the world, so they buy however many they can afford. If you or I were dying, we would probably do the same. Sadly, it is creating strains of HIV that are resistance to the less expensive drugs, making the disease even more lethal.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by mindseye
Probably part of this (especially the gov't manual) is not so much wanton disregard for world health than ignorance, incompetance, lack of available information, lack of responsibility, etc.

However, even if fully-informed, I have little doubt farmers would not make pretty much the same decision. Just as they have with GM rice which is already "illegally" making its ways into Chinese fields.

In mainland Chinese culture, personal profit takes primacy over public welfare. There really is no question on the matter. In China, it is simply normal to think that way.

please clarify. How is the decision to grow GM crops in any way comparable to a decision to use human antiviral drugs on chickens?

In case you didn't know, using human medication to treat animals in a way that can make the medications ineffective for treating humans is bad.

[Mr. Harley]

GM crops and soon-to-be animals do not have anything approaching the hazards of the agricultural use of antibiotics for cheap meat. They can pose a risk of creating superweeds and contaminating the wild ancestral genetic stock of food plants. However, they often require less, not more, of an input of chemicals or antibiotics, thus representing a mixed curse or blessing. I for one support them, as long as reasonable precautions are taken. Of course "reasonable" is the subject of much acrimony.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by shawnmmcc
they have some unique culinary habits that very well may have given us SARS (civets and the various wild animal markets) which was a hideous close call.

I still don't see what the big deal of SARS is. It's not like it's AIDS, not even remotely close.

[Urban Ranger]

Re: screw human rights - China is a menace to humanity!

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Now, they have to be so reckless and irresponsible as to risk millions of lives in the event of an epidemic, too!

I found this whole thing just a tad bit amusing.

While some people are screaming about a hypothetical epidemic, most don't even know that millions will die from malaria alone this year, most of them African children. Furthermore, this year hundreds of thousands will die because they don't have access to clean water. Again, most of them will be African children.

Of course, none of these compares to a hypothetical epidemic.

[LDiCesare]

GM crops and soon-to-be animals do not have anything approaching the hazards of the agricultural use of antibiotics for cheap meat.

Well, when they make crops resistant to things like round-up which is known to cause diseases in humans, GM crops can be very harmful, as they will entice people to use chemicals that the crops are immune to and men are not, and residual traces will be eaten, causing some serious damage to human health. Not to talk of the side effects of pesticides that tend to kill bees, which are themselves useful for agriculture.

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by mindseye
In mainland Chinese culture, personal profit takes primacy over public welfare. There really is no question on the matter. In China, it is simply normal to think that way.

People the world over think that way. About 300 years ago, Adam Smith pointed out that the butcher does not sell meet for the good of the community. He does it to make money.

Of course there are exceptions. You, undoubtably, are working for free in China out of the goodness of your heart because you want to improve the welfare of the Chinese people.

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by shawnmmcc
The two worst cases of drug misuse threatening the rest of the world come in two flavors - US and now Chinese agricutural policies, and abuse of antibiotics as a quick pallitive in modern health care systems coupled with the mostly third world problem of the treatment of human infections requiring intensive drug therapy.

I agree in general with what you're saying, although I would say it is more than just a China problem or a U.S. problem. It's a major global problem.

The question is how do we solve the problem?