Wide variety of antibiotic-resistance genes found in manure

It's been known for years that antibiotic resistant genes in bacteria spread horizontally like a cold, not vertically from generation to generation. As it happens, our food animals are given a huge variety of antibiotics - which triggers the development of antibiotic resistance genes in bacteria they harbor - which get excreted in their poop, which is used as fertilizer, which gets taken up by the veggies we eat, which then exposes the bacteria we have in our bodies to the resistant genes when we eat the veggies. A recent study isolated antibiotic resistant DNA from manure, then transferred the DNA to a dish of E. coli - and the E. coli "caught" the antibiotic resistance on exposure. The concern is that when we eat food contaminated with antibiotic resistant DNA, then the germs already present in our body will "catch" the DNA resistance from ingested DNA. ...Kind of a no-brainer, imho.

Current laws allow factory farms to dose their animals as much as they want with antibiotics, even with human antibiotics. No restrictions, no regulations.

Wide variety of antibiotic-resistance genes found in manure

Cow manure harbors a "remarkable" diversity of antibiotic-resistance genes and could be a reservoir for new types of antibiotic resistance (AR) as the genes transfer to soil when manure is used as crop fertilizer, according to a study released today in mBio, published by the American Society of Microbiology (ASM).

The researchers, from Yale University and the University of Connecticut, extracted DNA from five manure samples from four cows at a dairy farm in Connecticut, says a story from Agence France-Presse (AFP). Using a screening-plus-sequencing method, they identified 80 unique AR genes. When applied to a laboratory strain of Escherichia coli, the genes rendered the bacteria resistant to beta-lactams, aminoglycosides, tetracycline, or chloramphenicol.

When applied to a lab strain of E. coli, the genes made the bacteria resistant to certain well-known antibiotics, including penicillin and tetracycline.

This really doesn't surprise me at all.

With all of the antibiotics and steroids they are feeding cattle and other farm animals, it is just a matter of time before a superbug is born from the combination.

Sad part is that humans work very close by - and it could easily spread to the human population.

I guess The Walking Dead is becoming more of a reality every day, haha.

Necessity is the mother of all invention,

When we hit that wall of antibiotic resistance, we will either have alternatives or be well on the way to them.

Its a shame our ignorance on their use is going to end one of the greatest advancements medicine has ever seen.

A mechanical solution is in the foreseeable future, ten-twenty years from now though.

a reply to: benrl

When we hit that wall of antibiotic resistance, we will either have alternatives or be well on the way to them.

I guess you haven't heard of the SuperBugs. More and more just keep "popping up" - and every time we hit 'em with a new antibiotic, they develop a new resistance. Seems to me there's a message in there somewhere.

Heads up, New York: A near-invincible skin bacteria has invaded your gyms—and your homes

....branches started breaking off like crazy around the time of the 1995-2002 surge in US consumption of fluoroquinolone—often known as ciprofloxacin or norfloxacin—some 40% of which was for non-FDA-approved maladies. Because fluoroquinolone is secreted through sweat, its comes in contact with way more strains of bacteria than other antibiotics. And that, says Uhlemann, has given USA300 substrains ample opportunities to adapt.
+
But after they adapted, how did these new strains spread?
+
Again, their prevalence makes it hard to tell. Despite the study’s large sample, in only a handful of cases were the researchers able directly to connect an infection in one household to another elsewhere in the community, as you would with, say, the ebola virus, says Uhlemann.
+
“[With ebola] you have a case in one village and then the next village—you can almost draw a line from point A to point B to point C,” she says. “But we’re seeing [USA300] all over—you can’t point to where it came from. It was probably introduced multiple times and then diversified.”