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Seagulls Spreading Resistant Bacteria On Beaches
bs0d3 writes "Dr. Patrice Nordmann has disclosed the results of a small study that looked for resistant bacteria in seagull poop landing on Miami Beach in Florida. During April 2010, they collected 52 stool samples and found within them 83 isolates of gut bacteria such as E. coli. Wired's Maryn McKenna writes, 'Seven of the E. coli carried genes that direct production of CTX-M enzymes, a troublesome resistance factor that protects bacteria from the very broad category of drugs called extended-spectrum beta-lactams and that has recently spread worldwide. In addition, 14 of the E. coli were also carrying the gene for the CMY-2 enzyme, which confers the same ESBL resistance on Salmonella. Nine of the isolates were multi-drug resistant.' This has led some scientists to the conclusion that this is one avenue these bacterias are taking in human infections worldwide. The resistance factors identified in the seagull feces match ones that cause highly resistant infections in humans, and correlate with data collected on beaches in Portugal, Sweden, and France."
don't eat seagull poo? check
I guess I should stop hunting these free-range seagulls for food. I've heard the farm-raised variety is tastier anyway, but I haven't yet found a cheap supplier.
Disclaimer: I work for a major fast food chain...
Does having a witty signature really indicate normality?
flying rats. they all should be destroyed
Open-air landfills, leftovers, old prescriptions, and seagulls. Yep.
With the exception of earthquakes and meteor strikes, all problems can be traced to human overpopulation.
Not only misspelled, but it's the wrong word for the job.
Humans (for now) working together collaborate.
Data from disparate sources corroborate.
Did the spell-checker take the weekend off?
...feces carries bacteria. News at 11.
Impose local, state and federal regulation on seagulls. Any seagull that poops on the beach gets fined $50 or 3 days in jail and gets six points on their license to fly. Repeat offenders get their license revoked for 12 months.
Or we can have lifeguards start giving out hazmat suits...
OK guys, I've got enough reasons never to visit Florida.
You can stop now. Huge cockroaches, rednecks and Rick Scott were sufficient, thank you.
You are welcome on my lawn.
spreads bacteria
NO FUCKING SHIT SLASHDOT
news at 10: The ocean is salty
Now THAT is ironic.
Never really making this world a better place. They should all be destroyed.
What we need to do is find a natural predator for the pigeons, that is besides kids with alka-seltser tablets, they don't seem to be doing their job too well at that; Which is a good thing as animal cruelty is a sort of predicate to serial killers. May I suggest that we introduce the Bolivian tree lizard to our ecosystem, as it likes to eat the common pigeon, or at that's what I learned from the Principal of Springfield Elementary.
The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
The resistance factors identified in the seagull feces match ones that cause highly resistant infections in humans, and colaberates with data collected on beaches in Portugal, Sweden, and France.
Even if you'd spelled that word correctly, if still wouldn't represent the intention. Substituting "correlates" actually tells people what you meant.
Maybe you should stay indoors and play Duck Hunt!
Where did the seagulls pick up the bacteria in the first place? I thought these bacteria were found only in hospitals. Maybe we should be more careful with our medical waste and not dump it unprocessed in landfills.
See, Hitchcock was right!
Well, I suppose the moral of the story is not to mistake gull poop for ice cream.
The point, as someone else has mentioned here, is that these bacteria are resistant to antibiotics. Given that we don't normally treat wild birds with antibiotics, this is actually kind of troublesome.
This is probably due to the widespread prophylactic use of antibiotics in the feed given to farm animals, a practice that needs to be stopped (or at least sharply curtailed). Some antibiotics should be reserved only for use in humans, and then limited to cases where other antibiotics have proven ineffective.
The problem is that the drug companies make so much money off of selling the antibiotics to the feed suppliers, they're not exactly eager to stop doing it. So every time they develop a new "miracle" antibiotic, at the same time that your doctor is prescribing it for an ear infection, a lot full or cows, chickens or pigs somewhere a few miles away is also eating that antibiotic in its feed.
Cogito, igitur comedam pizza.
So this is why the pigs were at war with them...
"bacterias" is a double plural. Singular - bacterium, plural - bacteria
In Norway, a cleaning job in a hospital requires a 2 year training. But they make do without carpet bombing wide-spectrum antibiotics, and the number of patients with multi-resistant infections is very small. Think about it: any lab technician-in-training can scoop a bucket of water from the Thames, and measure the concentration of several antibiotics in it.
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
Maybe, just maybe (given that they only tested seagulls) - the seagulls aquired the resistant bacteria from the same place humans do.
I'd want to see a study on bacteria in sewers and other birds before I jumped to the conclusion seagulls are the source. Oh wait - that would be thinking.
I've already seen the result of testing chickens. (Hi Mr Steggles)
Two of the most efficient and adaptable forms of life is viruses and bacteria. Why are we not setting up fights between the two until they have produced a cure for every know side-effect to humans these life forms have?
I bet there is a strong correlation to using sewage sludge on farm fields.
http://www.sludgefacts.org/
http://vimeo.com/24854061
http://www.sewagesludgeactionnetwork.com/
Its amazing what you never knew. This bill has died in committee for 8 sessions of congress in a row.....
I thought government was there to keep us safe?
They've come to regard the birds as a vector. It seems like a crucial facet of all this would be, how, did the birds become an, apparently, very robust, vector?
Are these brids scavenging anti-bacterials from various human food sources? are they absorbsing same from the sewer effluvia that we know eventually makes its way into many coastal waters?
I'm always suspicious of these quirky "end reports" that seem to be spread without a context that might lead to some actual solution, or at least, amendment.