Muzyka’s Musings

Science Daily reports that Disinfectants Can Make Bacteria Resistant to Treatment.  Using soaps and other household products that contain triclosan and other biocides creates environments that favor the individual bacteria that are already resistant.  Those bacteria are the only ones that manage to survive and reproduce.  The result is that all the remaining bacteria are resistant to the biocide.  Many of those biocides are similar to antibiotics that humans take when they suffer from infections.  Bacteria often carry these genes in plasmids, where they can be easily exchanged with other bacteria they encounter.  The result is that the environment is teeming with bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics.  Perhaps the scariest part is that multiple resistance genes are found on the same plasmid, so that bacteria can be resistant to antibiotics that they have never encountered.  The widespread use of antibacterial dish soaps, hand soaps, toothpastes, etc. has led to the rise of bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics in our environment.  Another source of resistant bacteria is the agricultural use of antibiotics as growth promoters in animal feed.  It’s enough to make me think about becoming vegetarian.