From ScienceDaily:
It may not be an ideal topic for polite conversation, but human beings are swarming with bacteria: Even the average healthy adult plays host to about 100 trillion microscopic organisms. Infection takes place when the bacteria get out of hand.
Now, a University of Kansas researcher has penned a history of the struggle between man and bacteria — and warns that humankind someday may lose its advantage.
As the article goes on to explain, the big problem is that bacteria are rapidly evolving resistance to antibiotics:
“Bacteria that survive the initial onslaught of antibiotics then are increasingly resistant to them,” said Mitscher. “The sensitive proportion of the bacterial population dies, but then the survivors multiply quickly — and they are less sensitive to antibiotics. The sensitivity goes all the way from requiring a longer course of therapy or a higher dose, to being totally unaffected by the antibiotic.”
Humans have overused antibiotics in areas such as agriculture, worsening the dilemma of highly resistant bacteria.
“People are surprised to learn that almost half of all the antibiotics produced in the world are used in animal husbandry,” said Mitscher. “I’m not referring to using antibiotics for curing infections of animals — what I mean is use of antibiotics in relatively small doses as an animal-feed supplement. Animals then grow quicker to a marketable size, and this is seen as a universal good. The difficulty is that use of antibiotics in that setting is an invitation towards resistance. Unfortunately, humans get infected with resistant strains that were generated in animals in this manner.”
These days, with so-called “super-bugs” like Methacillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) making news, resistance is becoming a major public health problem.
Doesn't sound good.
1 comments:
There's no doubt that meat production is a disastrous business, economically, environmentally and medically. Obviously some would say ethically, too, but I'm not there yet.
I've been cutting down on my meat intake considerably of late, both of the mammalian and piscine variety (particularly tuna). I have no intention of becoming a vegetarian, but I think market forces are the only ones that can ultimately solve what seems to me to be an inherently market-based problem. Somehow, there simply must be a downturn in demand for cheap meat.
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