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Paz, Octavio
message | overview | findings | terms
Here is an example using talking points or briefing points to convey a difficult topic to an audience of lay people (non specialists).
Antibiotic Resistance in humans and anti-microbial additives in food animals.
Message:
Published risk assessments of antimicrobial use in agriculture likely underestimate the risk to human health because they tend to ignore future cumulative effects, ecological impact, and potential transfer of resistance from one bacterium to another and from one animal species to another.
- Exposure to antimicrobials fundamentally alters microbial ecosystems of humans, animals and the environment, which may lead to the development of antimicrobial resistance.
- Increasing antimicrobial resistance limits treatment options, raises health care costs, and increases the number, severity and duration of infections.
- Antimicrobial use is a major cause of antimicrobial resistance.
- It is estimated that, in the United States, the amount of antimicrobials administered to food animals is comparable to that used in humans. These antimicrobials are utilized largely to promote growth and prevent disease, thereby reducing production costs. A substantial amount of them are sold over-the-counter and do not require a veterinarian's prescription.
- Most antimicrobials used in food animal production are the same as, or closely related to, drugs used in human medicine.
- Current antimicrobial use policy for animals in the US differs from policy enacted in the European Union, which has banned the use of some antimicrobials for growth promotion on the farm.
- Also of concern is the farm use of antimicrobials of critical importance in human medicine, such as fluoroquinolones and third (or higher) generation cephalosporins.
message | overview | findings | terms
Once the prevalence of antimicrobial resistance in a population reaches a certain level, correcting the problem of built-up additives becomes extremely difficult to reverse.
See: Mariette DiChristina, Editor Scientific American "Reflections from Science," Scientific American.
"A new pattern of antibiotic resistance that is spreading around the globe may soon leve us defenseless against a frighteningly wide range of dangerous bacterial infections."
Maryn Mckenna, "The Enemy Within," Scientific American. April 2011, pp. 47-53.
Selected Report Findings
- Most food animals in the US are exposed to antimicrobials in feed, water, or by injection at some point during their lives.
- Fecal waste from food animals treated with antimicrobials, which is often composted and spread as fertilizer, is implicated in environmental contamination with resistant bacteria.
- Several lines of evidence may link antimicrobial use in food animal production to resistant infections in humans.
- These include five findings:
- (1.) direct studies tracing resistant infections in humans to specific meat and poultry operations;
- (2.) temporal evidence (i.e. the emergence of resistance in animal-associated bacteria prior to its emergence in human pathogens);
- (3.) circumstantial evidence linking human disease to trends in resistance among common bacterial pathogens such as Salmonella, Campylobacteria and E. coli;
- (4.) studies suggesting that farmers and family members may be more likely than the general public to harbor antimicrobial-resistant intestinal bacteria; and
- (5.) studies of the transfer of resistance in commensally persistent bacteria strains.
- These include five findings:
message | overview | findings | terms
Advocacy and the media as a community conscience
TERMS
For the purposes of this exercise talking points and briefing points are largely the same.
Talking points, these are short, but complete sentences that express the thoughts that you want your audience to recall when you are done speaking with them.
Briefing points, this is a military term but has been widely accepted by civilian agencies, NGOs, INGOs and corporations as a document to accompany a briefing.
That is, a briefing is a short focused meeting on what people need to know about a subject in order to interpret that body of knowledge correctly, or without misunderstandings that may often accompany a new subject.
