Multidrug Resistance Gene Released By Chinese Wastewater Treatment Plants

MTorrice writes "In recent years, increasing numbers of patients worldwide have contracted severe bacterial infections that are untreatable by most available antibiotics. Some of the gravest of these infections are caused by bacteria carrying genes that confer resistance to a broad class of antibiotics called beta-lactams, many of which are treatments of last resort. Now a research team reports that some wastewater treatment plants in China discharge one of these potent resistance genes into the environment. Environmental and public health experts worry that this discharge could promote the spread of resistance."

Comments

Antibacterial soap Frankenstein

[retroworks]

Antibacterial soaps are a frankenstein. Invented as something to cure a sppoky "risk" (like "bacteria") and sold, sold, sold. Multivitamins, ADHD drugs, billions of dollars of bullshit are being sold to consumers, harnessing innate risk aversion and evolved nurture to sell snake oil. India has already used so many antibacterial products that its hospitals are a paradise for resistant staph bacteria. Go upstream from the Chinese water treatment plants, and you'll find consumers who think they are doing the right thing and protecting their families.

Re:Antibacterial soap Frankenstein

[erroneus]

It doesn't have to.

The best medical practices promote a healthy body which can heal itself. This means not doing anything which will compromise or weaken the immune system. And if you're a person who believes vaccines are important, then you MUST agree that prophylactic use of antibiotics and the frequent use of antibacterials weaken the immune system by reducing attackers which keep the immune system active. Why must you agree? I'm not sure I need to explain this to anyone, but just in case, I'll remind anyone that vaccines are methods by which we seek to trick the body into forming an immunity response to a particular [inert] bug inserted into a body. If your immune system is weak or compromised, the efficacy of vaccines are naturally and likewise inhibited.

Ever wonder why so many people complain about getting the flu right after getting a flu shot? GUESS WHAT?!

Re:Antibacterial soap Frankenstein

[ColdWetDog]

No. You're being true to your nic.

Antibacterials don't 'weaken' the immune response. Your body will make whatever antibodies it can to the bacteria irregardless of whether you use antibiotics or not. The antibiotic, if used correctly, will stop / slow down the growth of the bacteria and allow the immune system to help clear the infection. The problem with too frequent or inappropriate use of an antibiotic is that is gives the bugs more chances to develop resistance to the drug.

Antibiotics are not so powerful that the body doesn't see the bacteria. It's not magic juju juice. The immune system is way more complex than you think.

antibiotic used "preventively" in cattle

[ruir]

So, I have seen my gf, parents and even myself being given by doctors high spectrum antibiotics for trivial sickness; then the disgrace of the cattle and farming industry using preemptively antibiotics just in case, for being able to maintain animals in unthinkable environments and for fattening animal and not stopping at anything, even when it is already widespread knowledge antibiotics will stop working in less than ten years time. And know it is Chinas fault???? Talking about the elephant in the room...

Re:antibiotic used "preventively" in cattle

[Anonymous Coward]

In all 3 circumstances, the same root cause is responsible: Big Industry.

1) the medical profession has thousands of careers and work opportunities on the line, influenced by the mere appearance of being negligent. As a consequence, doctors routinely perscribe preventative antibiotics, as insurance not against disease, but against accusations of being negligent at healthcare providers.

2) the meat and dairy industry is suffering from the unsavory effects that big name oligopolies introduce when they battle it out for low low prices. It costs considerably less per unit of product produced to shove 500 cattle into a pen barely big enough for 100, by essetially crating them in tiny stalls where they stand knee deep in their own shit 24/7, in front of a trough filled with corn, than it does to raise them on an open pasture. As such, marica's loe of eating beef every day of every week makes NOT using antibiotics an insensible proposition; instead of drug resistant bacteria, there would be high meat prices and meat shortages as demand far outstripped supplies. There's a LOT of cashflow at stake there.

3) china is trying to enter into a market space where it has to compete with the shit caused by the big names in western marets, and as such, has to be competative against even the sickening shit going on listed above: the only way to do that? Do it themseves, more radically, with no oversights or controls, and offer the products even cheaper.

The root problem in all cases?

Money, and the inherent failing in EVERY economic model ever tendered by greedy idiots: the belief that "externalities" don't matter, and that purpetual growth in production is always possible no matter what, and that no matter how fucked up the consequences make things, "science" and "technology" will "always make it OK."

Chew on that for awhile.

Re:antibiotic used "preventively" in cattle

[Anonymous Coward]

The only way it will be resolved is for humanity to accept metastability with the environment it lives in, and humanity has spent many hundreds of thousands of years evolving in a way that depends on doing the exact opposite of that.

Even with the handwriting burned into the goddamn wall, we as a species will still rush facefirst into the pits of that hell, and complain and lament about how good things used to be, all while murdering each other over what's left.

It's what we always do as a species. Not once, ever, in human hystory has humanity ever averted the resource depletion disaster through self regulation.

Never.

Re:antibiotic used "preventively" in cattle

[Anonymous Coward]

That I am willing to accept; the fallacy that "native americans" (generic category) had that property is what I dispute. I can point out examples of clearly destructive and non-sustainable behaviors from native american cultures all day long. The difference between the native americans and the europeans was a technological gap more than anything. The europeans had better tools to exploit the environment, and naturally exploited it harder and faster.

Humanity's evolutionary path has been a long littany of advances in how to modify the environment to better suit themselves. Tools, agriculture, medicine, culture-- they all converge on the unified objective.

As far as I am aware, at no point has humanity realized that this is unsustainable, and chosen to adapt themselves to suit the environmet, instead of the inverse. Some shamanistic tribes might possibly have done this to a limited extent; but it still isn't a knowing, willful choice to abstain; it is a superstitious practice, reinforced by natural forces that are outside the groups control.

It is this latter that is what is important here.

When presented with the knowledge, opportunity, and power to affect such change to avert the disaster, no no major civilization has been able or willing to make that choice.

Even the example given by the GP about the puebloans moving to avoid local scarcity illustrates this point. They constructed reservoirs to collect rainwater, and other such projects, yes-- but that just shows that they understood that water was a finite resource, and that demand for it cannot be continually extended; instead of altering their culture to limit their growth, they continued to grow, until even with migrational patterns, their civilization could no longer be sustained.

Our own culture is on the fast track to the same kind of sudden drop at the bottom. The signs of the underlying reality are all around us, but as a collective whole, we willfully choose to believe fictions and actively lie to ourselves that we are more clever than the laws of physics, rather than see those realities, say "Oh my fucking god!", and actively choose to diminish our activities until they are metastable with the environment, and stay there.

I've FIGURED OUT HOW TO STOP MRSA!!

[MarkvW]

New Law Needed!!

If the Doctor doesn't wash his hands every time he visits you for treatment, then the Doctor must complete the treatment and cannot charge you for it.

This would cure MRSA REALLY quick!!