re: #106 Charles Johnson

Human beings have been giving viruses and bacteria a crash course in how to fuck us up for at least a hundred years, and their short life cycle means very fast evolution.

One disturbing bit of news that I heard on NPR ‘Science Friday’ last week: growers in Florida have been spraying their groves wholesale with antibiotics to fight citrus greening disease.

“In humans, the drugs, oxytetracycline and streptomycin, are used to treat pneumonia, syphilis and a broad array of infections. In 2016, the compounds were approved for emergency use on citrus trees in Florida, and in December, the agency expanded the use of oxytetracycline for orange groves across the country.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/16/health/antibiotics-citrus-spraying.html