80 percent of all antibiotics (about 29 million pounds) are used in the US are administered not to humans, but are given to animals as growth promotants and to prevent disease (Consumers Union Report).
These antibiotics produce drug-resistant “superbugs” in animals (and in humans) that manifest as disease and are therefore incurable, causing widespread disease, deficiency, and occasionally, death.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there are 76 million cases of foodborne illness a year and 5,000 deaths a year from viral and bacterial pathogens related to the animal industry. The treatment of these illnesses cost an additional $26 billion in healthcare costs annually.

So, what’s the latest news?

The issue of antibiotics use in animal production in the United States hit national news (once again) in September 2012, when over 150 scientists and 50 farmers wrote a letter to to the Federal Drug Administration and to the United States Congress, overwhelmingly agreeing that the use of antibiotics in livestock production poses a risk to human health. The bottom line, as the letter states, is that:

Hundreds of scientific research studies and analyses by international scientific bodies support the conclusion that the overuse of critical human drugs in food animal production is linked to human diseases increasingly impervious to antibiotic treatment, putting human lives at unnecessary risk.

How does this happen?

In that same month, The Food & Water Watch, a nonprofit organization that advocates for fair policy in safe food and water provision, released a report entitled “Antibiotics Resistance 101” that uncovers the reality of the use of antibiotics in factory farming and its negative impacts on the economy, the environment, and the health of humans, animals, and plants alike. The infographic below explains the relationship of antibiotics to factory farming:

Text from the Infographic:

Factory farms use feed that’s pre-mixed with antibiotics to promote faster animal growth and prevent infections.
Giving low doses of antibiotics to groups of animals over extended time periods fu;s the development of antibiotic-resistant (AR) bacteria.
Waste is stored in lagoons and used as fertilizer. AR bacteria in the waste continue to reproduce and share genes with other bacteria in soil, streams, ponds and groundwater, creating “reservoirs of resistance”.
AR bacteria in livestock can spread to farmers, farmworkers, meat plant workers, and the general population.
Consumers encounter AR bacteria while handling raw meat and eating undercooked meat.
AR bacterial infections have become increasingly common. Doctors are concerned that some antibiotics no longer work to treat sick people.

Who created this problem?

The Natural Resources Defense Council, or NRDC (a regular defendant of nature and opponent to the Federal Drug Administration, aka the FDA) has produced a useful infographic on the political history of the mass use of antibiotics in the factory farming industry (click to zoom):

This infographic reviews some of the major political and scientific decisions and discoveries within the antibiotic debate — tracing the developments of “FDA Inaction” on the left and “The Science and Other Developments” alongside it. This infographic paints a straightforward story about the history of antibiotic usage in factory farming with an inescapable bottom line:

The FDA’s inaction on critical issues of antibiotic control and regulation is the key reason why antibiotics usage in factory farming exists today.

What do we do?

Despite the ongoing battle for antibiotics regulation, there are practical things we can do to stop drug resistant disease from plaguing our animals, our food, and our bodies. Below is a set of recommendations I’ve included for the average consumer to take a role:

Educate Yourself. Recognize the moral, medical, and economic imperative for comprehensive antibiotic reform (we could save billions of dollars in antibiotic production and healthcare costs)
Prepare Foods at Home. Protect your family and your health by cooking your own food at home, buying from organic and bio stores as much as possible.
Certify Your Purchases. Aim to purchase meats and dairy products certified by “USDA Certified Organic”, “American Grassfed Certified”, Animal Welfare Approved”, and “Certified Humane”
Change the Policy. Urge your representative to support the “Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act” (PAMTA).

4 comentarios / 20 Jan 2013 por Kelly Elizabeth Behrend
IMSD /

Project Management: The Value of Plan B

As I browsed through various project management blogs and the writing of some of the most famous project managers, I came across an alternative strategy for managing projects, appropriately named “Plan B”.

Created by Daphne Depassé, a Dutch woman who calls herself a “solution designer”, Plan B is mainly concerned with restoring some of the key humanistic elements to project management. Depassé recognizes the value in some of project management’s most rigid and results-driven mechanisms (such as Work Breakdown Structure, Scope Analysis, Power Mapping, Quality Control, Compliance, Risk Analysis, and Monitoring and Evaluation), but urges for project managers to complement these processes with strategies that empower and include the people that conduct them in meaningful, reciprocal, and flexible ways.

The concept for “Plan B” Project Management is to provide an alternative route for developing ideas and achieving goals when a project gets tired, stuck, overly complex, or is in a rapidly changing environment. Plan B is not meant to replace the traditional project management process — rather Plan B supports it with innovative approaches in times of need.

The core elements of the Plan B approach to project management include Six (+1) Roles, Six (+1) Phases, and a set of principles called the “Common Mindset”.

Six (+1) Roles, each of which are always taken on by team members, which can change throughout the project and include:

The Master of Value — guards the right focus
The Set Designer — takes care of an optimal setting (in the broadest sense)
The Storyteller — monitors common understanding
The Innovator — focuses on opportunities and the future
The Multiple Viewer — the insightful observer
The Coach — encourages all to go forward without barriers
You (the +1) — focus on people-centered project management

Six (+1) Phases which are interrelated and flexible, inspired by Design Thinking. As Depassé says, “the method is your roadmap. Not a prison.”:

B Prepared — define and prepare
B Curious— discover and uncover, investigate and understand
B Creative — imagine, brainstorm and generate ideas
B Experimental — prototype, design, test
B Effective — make it feasible, convincing, and achievable
B Adaptive — monitor and evaluate to adapt and improve
B Focused (the +1) — continue to reiterate values and the central goal

Finally, these roles and phases are grounded in the Common Mindset: 11 Principles of Plan B, which are the principles to be put in practice throughout the project:

Think with your Whole Brain
Shift Happens
Focus on Values; Value to Whom?
Multiple Viewing
Collaborate across Boundaries (Co-Create)
Loosen Up
Be Brave: Experiment
Make it Happen (Action!)
Tell the Story & Visualize
Have Fun and Play
Get Personal

The two most interesting roles that stand out to me are the Set Designer and the Storyteller. Depassé describes the humanistic role of the Set Designer, explaining that “location affects our moods and thoughts. Everything — from the view, to the colors, the height of a ceiling, the temperature and furniture — influences how we think and feel, and how we work together.” In terms of Storytelling, Depassé stresses that ensuring the idea and proposals are made explicit and translated into clear, simple, and visual messages to mitigate one of the biggest flaws in human interaction — miscommunication.

Overall, this approach seems to be a radical but useful one in terms of managing teams, seeing innovative opportunities, and mitigating the “human” challenges imbedded in every project we seek to manage together.

7 comentarios / 20 Jan 2013 por Kelly Elizabeth Behrend
IMSD /