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August 7, 2001
Editorials
The overuse of antibiotics
The American Medical Association recently sounded an alarm everyone should take seriously: The overuse of antibiotics, mostly by livestock producers, is creating strains of drug-resistant bacteria that pose an increasingly serious threat to the nation's health -- and to physicians' ability to combat common infections. For years, medical researchers have reported seeing strains of infectious bacteria that are resistant to common antibiotics. Several studies have drawn connections between antibiotics fed to animals and the movement through the food chain of drug-resistant infectious diseases.
Semi-tough
Safety, not protectionism, should be Congress' goal in setting tough but fair regulations for Mexican long-haul truckers operating in the United States.
Letters
Sound, balanced policy lessens illegal drug use
The St. Petersburg Times in its three-part series, U.S. versus them: Challenging America's War on Drugs (July 29-31) offered a skewed presentation of the facts to buttress the legitimacy of its "challenge." The reporter's message, despite the barrel of ink invested in it, can be reduced to the commonplace (but untrue) mantra: It's a war, the war has failed; and the war does more harm than the drugs.
Perspective
Taking jobs, alienating customers
For weeks Americans have been told that the outsourcing of high-tech jobs is good for our economy. So said Greg Mankiw, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers in a recent report signed by President Bush. So, too, writes Thomas Friedman of the New York Times in articles praising the rise of call centers in India used for everything from making airline reservations and reading medical X-ray films to providing tech support for American computer firms.
Philip Gailey: Democrats fall off campaign finance reform wagon
Well, what do you know. Soft money is back, and it's making hypocrites of all those Democrats who fervently championed the McCain-Feingold campaign reform law, not to mention those Republicans who objected to the law's restrictions on issue advocacy.
Bill Maxwell: Who is for the farm worker?
Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is touting legislation to improve the lives of Florida's 300,000-plus farm workers, who endure institutional and systemic injustices each day in our fields and groves and their personal lives.
Robyn E. Blumner: For some defendants, an American gulag
In Bernard Malamud's masterpiece The Fixer, inmate Yakov Bok was subjected to psychological torture in a Soviet gulag through the humiliations of constant shackling and repeated strip searches.
© Copyright 2001 St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved.
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