Antibiotic resistant microbes in soil

Posted: March 8th, 2010 - 5:11pm by Rob Mancini

Author: 
Rob Mancini
 
 
University tuition is not cheap and I, like many others, had to find employment throughout my university career to help pay for courses. Unfortunately, I ended up working in a hospital dealing with patients suffering from MRSA (methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus) and VRE (vancomycin resistant enterococcus), very disturbing and heartbreaking at the same time. A recent study in the Journal of Environmental Science and Technology indicates that there is more evidence pointing towards microorganisms in the soil becoming more resistant to antibiotics, ultimately ending up in the food supply; not unlikely. For instance, the use of avoparcin in Europe, an antimicrobial drug used as a growth promoter in food producing animals was shown to be one important factor leading to VRE in animals and that foodborne VRE may cause human colonization1.
 
The United Press International reports:
 
The researchers said that trend during the past 60 years continues despite more stringent rules on the use of antibiotics in medicine and agriculture, as well as improved sewage treatment technology that broadly improves water quality in surrounding environments.
David Graham of Britain's Newcastle University and his colleagues said scientists have known for years that resistance was increasing in clinical situations, but the new study is the first to quantify the same problem in the natural environment over long time-scales.
The scientists said they are concerned increased antibiotic resistance in soils could have broad consequences to public health through potential exposure from water and food supplies. They said their findings "imply there may be a progressively increasing chance of encountering organisms in nature that are resistant to antimicrobial therapy."
 
1. L. Clifford McDonald, Matthew J. Kuehnert, Fred C. Tenover, and William R. Jarvis. Vancomycin-Resistant Enterococci Outside the Health-Care Setting: Prevalence, Sources, and Public Health Implications. Emerging Infectious Diseases, Vol 3. No.3. July-September 1997. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia.
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Categories: Food Safety Culture
Tags: MRSA, Staphylococcus Aureus, United Press International, VRE

Comments

Anonymous says:

VRE has been around for several years. It is convenient to blame antibiotic use in animals and I will support your suggestion that using antibiotics as growth stimulators is not acceptable. However, it is my opinion that pollution with unprocessed human sewage , due to ever increasing human population density, as well as waste-water from hospitals, is more likely to be a risk factor for antimicrobial resistance. This is really just because the relative volumes of waste water containing human sewage and waste-water exceed the runoff from feedlots. Also the high levels of antibiotics used routinely in human medicine, and excreted by patients, are not always broken down by water purification. They thus land in the environment. It would be interesting to analyse rainwater for antimicrobial residues....

Posted on March 10th, 2010 - 11:26am

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