Superbugs are breeding, spreading drug-resistant genes at water treatment plants
Source: naturalnews.com
What role does the current overuse of antibiotics play in encouraging the spread of new and invasive super bugs?
Why are water treatment facilities spreading super bugs even after the water has been treated?
Is chlorine an effective water disinfectant?
Experts are beginning to ponder these questions as water treatment plants are routinely found to be ineffective. New lab results show that specific infectious superbugs can now spread drug-resistant genes at water treatment plants.
Is it time to curtail the use of antibiotics? They are becoming worthless in the face of evolving superbugs. What natural antimicrobial substances could hospitals and doctors begin using to help patients fight infections without creating and spreading new superbug genes?
What ways can water filtration be improved?
These are the tough questions being asked on the cusp of new findings from Pedro J. J. Alvarez and researchers from Rice University.
Superbug genes can spread to other species of bacteria
In the past decade, Alvarez and his colleagues have isolated abundant antibiotic-resistant genes in China’s Hai River. Their mission from there was to find out how these highly evolved genes found their way into the environment in the first place and why they were spreading. They started by inspecting the source - water treatment plants in the area. Since antibiotic-resistant genes are common in fecal bacteria, they studied cultivated bacteria from incoming sewage at nearby water treatment facilities.
Joined by researcher Daqing Mao from Tianjin University, Alvarez extracted bacterial DNA from various water treatment stages at two nearby water treatment plants in China. They also inspected treated sludge, which is typically used by farmers as a fertilizer for their fields.
Using a process called polymerase chain reaction, the researchers isolated and measured various levels of antibiotic-resistant gene NDM-1. This gene first appeared in 2008 and has since then spread to every continent except Antarctica.
They also measured the amount of gene 16S rRNA, which is carried by all bacteria.
What they found in the treated water
Their tests found that both water treatment facilities were releasing thousands of copies per milliliter of the resistant NDM-1 superbug gene. Treated sludge contained even greater amounts - 10 million copies per gram of dry weight!
One treatment plant was actually expelling more of this infectious DNA into the environment than it was taking in!
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Read the full article at: naturalnews.com
