Would You Move Somewhere Safer?

Governments, and a few people, are taking notice of antibiotic resistance and doing something about it. Primarily that simply means using less antibiotic drugs for humans and animals. In some countries it’s looking like it’s just too late, while others might have a chance.

So the future is not necessarily black and white – we are all doomed vs new drugs and remedies being invented. A hybrid future may arise where some countries won’t be affected too much, and other countries are in a bad way. Which begs the question – would you move somewhere safer, knowing that it could improve your expected lifespan by decades?

This map, as an example, show resistance of MRSA in Europe – note the big differences. If the numbers were to stay like that, across illnesses, surely Mediterranean folk would be wanting to move to Scandinavia.

Antibiotic-free Meats Selling Well

Consumer Reports sent shoppers to 136 stores in 23 states, belonging to the 13 largest supermarket chains, to see what kind of meat and poultry products raised without antibiotics are offered and at what price.

What they found is encouraging. The shoppers found that one chain, Whole Foods, is already offering nothing but meat and poultry raised without antibiotics. Several others – Giant, Hannaford, Shaw’s, Stop & Shop, Publix, and Trader Joe’s – had broad selections of these products. At only four chains were shoppers unable to find any organic or other products raised without antibiotics: Sam’s Club, Food 4 Less, Food Lion, and Save-A-Lot. [Source]

They also found that the antibiotic-free meats weren’t necessarily any more expensive. Unfortunately, this consumer preference has not made any inroads into processed meats – where 80% of U.S. meat ends up.

In a national survey, more than 85% of adult consumers said they thought that fresh meat raised without antibiotics should be available in their local stores and supermarkets. Consequently Consumer Reports have launched a new campaign – Meat Without Drugs, Stop the Superbugs with a companion website, www.MeatWithoutDrugs.org, and this video:

Ancient antibiotic-resistant bacteria discovered

This sounds scary, but the discovery hasn’t changed levels of resistance, it has just better educated scientists .

…researchers have made a remarkable discovery — bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics, even though they have been pristinely isolated from human contact for more than four million years.

…”This has important clinical implications,” Wright said. “It suggests that there are far more antibiotics in the environment that could be found and used to treat currently untreatable infections.”

…An analysis showed none are capable of causing human disease, but almost all are resistant to at least one antibiotic, with some able to fend off up to 14 of the drugs.

…In all, resistance was found to virtually every antibiotic that doctors currently use to treat patients.

Further research could uncover new antibiotics, which while the ancient bacteria might be resistant it, common bacteria might succumb to it for some time.

Germs Retaining Resistance, After Antibiotics Halted

Scientists had expected that, on farms where the practice of giving antibiotics to livestock has ceased, germ immunity would slowly fade away. Alas, that is not the case:

To the team’s surprise, the entire bug community kept most of its armor against the antibiotics, even after 2 ½ years. When the researchers grew the bacteria in the lab, for example, 70% to 100% of them were still resistant to chlortetracycline when the pigs were slaughtered. “I didn’t expect such high levels of resistance would remain,” says Chénier, whose team will publish the results in the January issue of Microbial Ecology.

It might be due to resistance genes being attached to other genes that remain useful. Or it could be due to reinfection from fertiliser:

The new data, he says, suggest that the common practice of using swine waste as a fertilizer is like spreading truckloads of antibiotic resistance on farmland. Those bacteria can share their resistance with other bacteria that happen to be on crops and in downstream aquatic ecosystems—bacteria that could cause illness, Chénier says. “This is a time bomb.

New Strains of E. coli

Scientific American (August 2011) has provided us with some facts regarding E. coli and the new strains:

Antibiotics can worsen an E. coli infection. Giving antibiotics, including Cipro, can kill a patient who has been sickened by any strain of Shiga toxin E. coli. The reason: when the bacteria die, they release the toxin in massive amounts. Fortunately, carbapenem antibiotics, seems to not trigger such a major toxin release, but these drugs are usually only prescribed in special circumstances.

E. coli O104:H4 is resistant to at least 14 antibiotics. Nobody knows why, because many of 14 are not typically used to treat E. coli infections. This means that either this bacteria, or one it has swapped genes with, must have developed in an environment that was full of antibiotics—most likely a hospital or a farm.

The original E. coli, O157:H7, is no longer a threat (in the USA), due to the government requiring food producers to test and report any outbreaks. However reporting outbreaks of the new, more dangerous strains is not yet mandatory!

DANGER: Gas Pump Nozzles

You can catch a superbug from anywhere, but anything in the public sphere that gets touched by a large variety of people will be top of the list – and now it is time to worry about fuel pumps at gas stations:

The nozzles we use to fill up the tank have joined the range of everyday items that are seen as dangerous breeding grounds for bacteria and viruses.

Levels on nozzle handles are worse than escalator rails, parking meters, pedestrian buttons on traffic signals and handles on mailboxes, a US study by Kimberly-Clark Professional found.

There’s nothing particular about gas / petrol pump nozzles that means bacteria will thrive, but rather the amount of time in the day that they are in contact with the hands of various people. Personally, I don’t see why the length of time you hold something would mean you are more likely to transmit bacteria… but the numbers say it is true.

One solution is to constantly wash your hands. A better solution is to wear gloves. The very best option is to not put your fingers in your mouth.

Antibiotics Harming Future Generations

It is well understood that when you use antibiotics to destroy harmful bacteria, you also lose beneficial bacteria – collateral damage.

Most of the good bacteria can be found in your gut, where it helps with your digestive processes.

In a report in the journal Nature, Martin Blaser writes:

Antibiotics kill the bacteria we do want, as well as those we don’t. These long-term changes to the beneficial bacteria within people’s bodies may even increase our susceptibility to infections and disease.

Overuse of antibiotics could be fuelling the dramatic increase in conditions such as obesity, type 1 diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease, allergies and asthma, which have more than doubled in many populations.

…Antibiotics are miraculous. They’ve changed health and medicine over the last 70 years. But when doctors prescribe antibiotics, it is based on the belief that there are no long-term effects. We’ve seen evidence that suggests antibiotics may permanently change the beneficial bacteria that we’re carrying.

That permanent change can be problematic for future generations, because when a child is born, and it passes through the birth canal—that is the baby’s original exposure to beneficial bacteria. If that bacteria has been compromised in the mother, the baby could be less healthy throughout its life.

Disturbing New Statistics

The Health Protection Agency (HPA) in England has provided the Independent with the following information:

Until 2008, there were fewer than five cases a year in the UK of bugs resistant to carbapenem, our most effective intravenous (IV) antibiotic. New statistics reveal how there have been 386 cases already this year, in what the HPA has called a “global public health concern”. Doctors are particularly concerned because carbapenems are often the last hope for hospital patients suffering from pneumonia and blood infections that other antibiotics have failed to treat. Such cases were unknown in the UK before 2003.

Within the EU, more than 25,000 people are dying each year from antibiotic-resistant infections, and the numbers are sure to keep rising. A WHO conference held in Baku, Azerbaijan last week unveiled an action plan that has been agreed to by 50 countries.

Bugs Resistant for 30,000 Years!

The thing about antibiotics is that they tend to be sourced from nature, even if indirectly. This means that bugs have already encountered their enemy, and have developed resistance to them, long ago.

With few new wonder drugs in the pipeline, some doctors are warning of a postantibiotic age, in which simple infections will become untreatable again.

Most antibiotics are based on chemicals used by bacteria or fungi to fight other bacteria, and researchers have speculated that antibiotic resistance must have coevolved with these compounds millions of years ago. Some scientists even claimed to have cultured ancient resistant bacteria from frozen Siberian soil in the lab…

Ulitmately the age of resistance is immaterial – solving the problem is tantamount.

Insights from the USDA

While they do their best to distance themselves from the information, the USDA has published the following info:

  • A single antibiotic-resistant pathogen, MRSA—just one of many now circulating among Americans—now claims more lives each year than AIDS.
  • “Use and misuse of antimicrobial drugs in food animal production and human medicine is the main factor accelerating antimicrobial resistance.”
  • “Farmers and farm workers may get exposed to resistant bacteria by handling animals, feed, and manure.”
  • [antibiotic resistance] in Salmonella strains was most likely due to the antimicrobial use in food animals

Read more at Mother Jones

Not surprisingly, the USDA, under pressure from meat producers, has removed the report, and the researcher has been silenced. It’s pretty sad when the lives of millions are ignored in favor of the pursuit of commerical dollars. Especially when the industry would not die, just lessen due to lower yields increasing prices… I’m sure there will never be a surplus of beef in the USA.