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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."
Unfortunately, not quite as simple as that. Seagulls like to crap on your hair, if no one points it out to you then there's a chance you could get infected while running your fingers through your hair and then licking them.
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?
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.
The news isn't that. The news is that bacteria with some degree of antibiotic resistance are so common that they are showing up in a logical; but not closely linked to hospitals, livestock feedlots, or overmedicated humans, disease vector...
You can find bacteria pretty much wherever you want, and feces usually has its share of pathogens; but time was when you had to go actively hunting, and in the right places, to find antibiotic resistance at any significant level.
Cattle is given preemptive antibiotics treatment. This makes its guts bacteria always resistant to the antiobiotics used. Perhaps we could stop selecting drug resistant bacteria there.
Both comments are equally ignorant. It is arguable that we are the universe attempting to understand itself. That is perhaps one of the highest possible destinies of space time. That said, most human beings barely aspire to know more than which way to put their underwear on (that and how to mate, endlessly.) We only hate seagulls and rats because they are intelligent and are successful in human shaped environments.
Let's get clear about this. The existence of resistant bacteria is the result of indiscriminate use of antibiotics by lazy, greedy, self serving aggro-businesses and government regulatory bodies with neither the power nor the mandate to protect our local (let alone global) environment from vast degradation by multinational corporations. This is just one more item on a list that now more than anything else resembles one of those giant cheese wheels of toilet paper unrolled. Blaming birds for this is like blaming rats for the black death in Europe. Europeans killed all the cats and old ladies because they thought they were in league with the devil. They lived in places of extreme crowding and pitiful sanitation. The rats overpopulated, the rat fleas bit both humans and rats and both became reservoirs for plague. In the end 1 in 3 people died and it was people who hand made a disaster through ignorance, superstition and acting against their own best interest. Wow, things haven't really changed all that much in 500 years.
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.
Dude get a clue, hell, rent one, they're cheap, its the 21rst century... I figure kindergarteners have heard about space-time, if that's your signal for condescending you seriously need to consider a few night courses. The ideas proffered have been common conversations for magazines and science programs from PBS to the Discovery Channel (you do know how to read... yes?) If this is what passes for pedantic in your eyes, then I'm afraid it says a lot more about you than it does about me. As for being a charlatan, for the love o' Jebus go Google something (anything) before venting such profound ignorance.
I'm sorry you missed the point of what I was saying, that human beings and seagulls both belong. That the problem isn't seagulls and never has been. That all life can and should be respected and that people need to take responsibility for the stupid, shitty, shoddy crap they inflict on the planet and one another. If I wasn't laughing it was because this is one of the biggest threats we'll face this century. Diseases that we made indestructible because some idiot thought it might increase the yield of his cattle herd by 0.04%. Please, feel free, I'd love to hear a good resistant infection joke. Heard the one about the guy walking down the street with the red, running, pustulent sores? Yeah, I didn't think so.