Brian Small

1970!!

.> Bacteria — those tiny “bugs” that invade bodies and some times raise havoc — are begin ning to fight back against man's attempt to control them with modern drugs. Moreover, the bac teria are waging such a good fight that many scientists from around the world have become seriously concerned that the “bugs” might come out on top, rendering human populations vulnerable to diseases now under control..> Scientists and physicians are concerned about the problem but at the same time there is deep disagreement as to how dangerous the situation really is. Last week, under the aus pices of the New York Acad emy of Sciences, experts from 11 countries gathered here to thrash out the controversy. When they adjourned, many partici pants said they learned a great deal, but few said they had changed their opinions..> Dr. #TsutomuWatanabe, of Tokyo's Keio University School of Medicine, and a pioneer in the area of drug‐resistant bac teria, is one of the scientists who felt there might be real danger. The situation in his own country, he said, illustrates the seriousness of the problem.
....> Over the past two years, Dr. Watanabe said in an interview, huge numbers of commercially raised Japanese fish have succumbed to infectious diseases. Antibiotics have been ineffective in treating these infections, he said, and the industry is seriously threatened. The fish are not responding to drug therapy because of a practice in animal husbandry that is common in most developed countries. In Japan, the United States and elsewhere, food animals such as cows, chickens, pigs and fish are routinely fed low but varying doses of antibiotics. - https://www.nytimes.com/1970/10/18/archives/resistant-bacteria-pose-a-new-danger-industry-threatened.html

#Bacteria #RFactor #episome -> #plasmid #AntibioticResistance #Antibiotics #IndustrialFarming #ConcentratedAnimalFeedOperations #Cafos

Resistant Bacteria Pose A New Danger

The New York Times
May 22, 2023 at 1:15pmWeb
Show threadBrian SmallMay 22, 2023

.> The medicated feeds serve two purposes. One is that farm ers have found that animals (fish are an exception) fed on antibiotics early in life grow big ger and better than animals that are not. Scientists do not yet fully understand why this happens, but animal growers love the effect..> Second, modern husbandry techniques require that massive populations of animals be pen ned, cooped or pooled in one spot to save labor and speed efficiency. To protect the densely packed animals (Including fish) from diseases that could spread easily under such conditions, farmers feed them antibiotics. Diseases are prevented before they begin.
....> The problem gets more complex. Ten years ago Dr. Watan abe discovered that in a few types of bacteria one organism may acquire resistance to one or more antibiotics simply from contact with another resistant strain of bacteria. He called it transferable drug resistance..> What happens is that certain bacteria, in gaining resistance to drugs, develop small bits of genetic material (called epi somes) within their cell walls. These small bits are called R (for resistance) factors. And it is now known that bacteria can pass these R factors easily from one type of bacteria to another. Thus a strain of bacteria can become resistant to drugs with out ever being exposed to anti biotics; it simply needs to come into contact with a strain that has R factors. #RFactor #episome #plasmid