Gert van der Hoek
In Memoriam - Editor, Senior Moderator
Antibiotic Resistance Spreads Through Environment, Threatens Modern Medicine
Posted: 05/09/2012 12:16 pm Updated: 05/10/2012
Waste from people, pets, pigs and even seagulls may be playing a significant role in the rise of antibiotic-resistant infections, including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a number of new studies warn.
Widespread fear of diminishing returns for modern medicine is becoming amplified, scientists say, by the discovery of soils and waterways polluted with both traces of antibiotics and bacteria encoded with antibiotic-resistant genes, the information that tells a microbe how to evade drugs designed to kill it. And even if that fortified microbe isn't capable of causing illness in humans itself, scientists add, its DNA could find its way into the more malignant microbes in the environment.
"Antibiotic resistance is likely the biggest public health challenge that we'll be facing this century," said Amy Pruden, an expert on antibiotic resistance at Virginia Tech. "We're in a state of complacency right now. We count on antibiotics working for us, but they are slowly starting to lose their effectiveness."
While progress has been made in the clinical realm -- limiting unnecessary uses of antibiotics, for example, and encouraging patients to take the full course of their prescribed drugs -- Pruden noted "mounting evidence that the environment is another important piece of the puzzle."
Drug residues and bacteria with drug-resistant genes can pass together through a human's or animal's gut and into the environment, even if the living contaminants take a detour through a wastewater treatment plant.
In a study published on Tuesday, Scottish researchers found that relatively low concentrations of antibiotics in certain environments -- such as river sediments, swine feces lagoons and farmed soil -- may be enough to speed along the proliferation of the drug-resistant genes.
Read more : Huffington Post
thanks to Dave Roberts
Posted: 05/09/2012 12:16 pm Updated: 05/10/2012
Waste from people, pets, pigs and even seagulls may be playing a significant role in the rise of antibiotic-resistant infections, including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a number of new studies warn.
Widespread fear of diminishing returns for modern medicine is becoming amplified, scientists say, by the discovery of soils and waterways polluted with both traces of antibiotics and bacteria encoded with antibiotic-resistant genes, the information that tells a microbe how to evade drugs designed to kill it. And even if that fortified microbe isn't capable of causing illness in humans itself, scientists add, its DNA could find its way into the more malignant microbes in the environment.
"Antibiotic resistance is likely the biggest public health challenge that we'll be facing this century," said Amy Pruden, an expert on antibiotic resistance at Virginia Tech. "We're in a state of complacency right now. We count on antibiotics working for us, but they are slowly starting to lose their effectiveness."
While progress has been made in the clinical realm -- limiting unnecessary uses of antibiotics, for example, and encouraging patients to take the full course of their prescribed drugs -- Pruden noted "mounting evidence that the environment is another important piece of the puzzle."
Drug residues and bacteria with drug-resistant genes can pass together through a human's or animal's gut and into the environment, even if the living contaminants take a detour through a wastewater treatment plant.
In a study published on Tuesday, Scottish researchers found that relatively low concentrations of antibiotics in certain environments -- such as river sediments, swine feces lagoons and farmed soil -- may be enough to speed along the proliferation of the drug-resistant genes.
Read more : Huffington Post
thanks to Dave Roberts