RE: NANFA-- Antibiotics

Crail, Todd (tcrail_at_northshores.com)
Tue, 12 Nov 2002 13:33:44 -0500

So you're okay with someone dumping their post-tank nuking water change into
their leechbed 100 yards from your favorite salmon headwaters? Or down the
driveway into the stormdrain? Cause you know, E coli *never* makes it into
the water :)

The goal is always education. Wether concerning proper aquaria procedure or
Anthrax scares (did anyone else watch the med racks at the shops during the
scare?).

Apathy is the real enemy and evil in that light, and I'd prefer to stick to a
society that requires prequalification before allowing anyone to dispense
these chemicals for whatever cause. A pharmacist spends how long in school to
gain the right to dispense these chemicals to humans? A medical doctor spends
how long in school to gain the right to dispense these chemicals to humans?

It's bad enough that anyone can non-chalantly roll into their educated doctor
with a sore throat or a cough, get a script wether they need it or not because
it's not worth explaining, receive the script from their educated pharmacist
who may shake their head that they're pumping out more of this stuff, and then
never even hear back wether their throat swab revealled strep or not.

Then when these same people non-chalantly walk into a fish shop looking for
the same stuff... It just makes my stomach turn.

Okay, back to coding instead of philosophy :) lol

Todd

-----Original Message-----
From: Jay DeLong
Sent: Tuesday, November 12, 2002 12:49 PM
To: nanfa_at_aquaria.net
Subject: RE: NANFA-- Antibiotics

At 08:25 AM 11/12/2002 -0500, you wrote:
>However, I'll poke in here, that a good number of people who keep aquariums
>dose the snot out of the antibiotics like the store and books tell them to,
it
>fails, and they feel bad "killing" those last two fish.
>
>And then they do what with them?
>
>That's not containment to me, nor any sort of a line.

Todd, I don't know what to say about the self-medicating human visiting the
pet shop, but I think aquarium use of medications-- and the containment
thay can provide with proper use-- is a reasonable and sensible
line. Perhaps the best way to approach the issue is from a risk assessment
perspective. The chance of an aquarist actually producing a mutant
bacterium then releasing it must be many orders of magnitude less than that
of their releasing a natural pathogen. Of course such natural pathogens
may not be native to their local waters, and Voila! You have the Brazilian
Bully Bacterium in Boston. But the problem isn't the pathogen-- that's
just Nature being itself. The problem is the unwise and illegal
release. Therefore, a goal can be to educate aquarists about all the
hazards associated with fish releases.

--
Jay DeLong
Olympia, WA
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/ reflect the beliefs or goals of the North American Native Fishes
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/ This is the discussion list of the North American Native Fishes Association
/ nanfa_at_aquaria.net. To subscribe, unsubscribe, or get help, send the word
/ subscribe, unsubscribe, or help in the body (not subject) of an email to
/ nanfa-request_at_aquaria.net. For a digest version, send the command to
/ nanfa-digest-request_at_aquaria.net instead.
/ For more information about NANFA, visit our web page, http://www.nanfa.org