Chinese sewage is feeding superbugs that no antibiotic can kill

[n2doc]

Antibiotics have saved hundreds of millions of lives and extended billions of others. But paradoxically, the more they are used the more the bacteria they fight get stronger, with potentially lethal consequences.
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While some “superbugs,” as antibiotic-resistant bacteria are known, can be killed with specialized antibiotics, the fear is that others cannot. Case in point: New Delhi Metallo 1 (NDM-1). A gene discovered in India in 2010, NDM-1 causes common bacteria like e. coli and salmonella to grow impervious to antibiotics.
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Just-published research shows that sewage treatment plants in northern China are unable to kill NDM-1-spiked bacteria and are also making them stronger.
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“We often think about sewage treatment plants as a way to protect us, to get rid of all of these disease-causing constituents in wastewater,” Rice University’s Pedro Alvarez, one of the study’s authors, says. “But it turns out these microbes are… eating sewage, so they proliferate. In one wastewater treatment plant, we had four to five of these superbugs coming out for every one that came in.”
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more

http://qz.com/159417/chinese-sewage-is-feeding-superbugs-that-no-antibiotic-can-kill/

[djean111]

1. And is the treated sewage used to irrigate crops or water livestock and fish?

The TPP's directive for not labeling anything with country of origin will profoundly change my shopping habits.
Local and trusted, that's about it.
Not to mention the dangers of these superbugs being passed along in hospitals and mass transportation shopping cart handles - a constellation of ways for this stuff to spread world-wide.
The only entity who will do well because of this is Pharma.
No, this is not a conspiracy theory, just extrapolation. If some countries won't take American GMO corn or beef, and we (very rarely, I think) won't take food from other countries because of contamination, this will really shake up those food futures, too, eh? If public outrage won't stop this sort of thing, maybe threatened profits will.

[leftyohiolib]

2. china: the gift that keeps on giving

[markpkessinger]

3. It's a terrible problem . . .

. . . but so is BigAgra's use of antibiotics on livestock here in the U.S. Not only do those trace antibiotics find their way into our digestive systems, they are also released into the enviroment through the animals' waste, and are likely also contributing to the rise of antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria.

[Blue Owl]

4. Finally, an explanation of how the GOP remains alive

n/t

[Coyotl]

5. Of course, no other sewage anywhere else can do this!

What crap (pun intended), to say this is a Chinese problem when it is a human problem!

[librechik]

6. Frankly, it will be a miracle if we survive til 2050 when global warming

drives the survivors underground to eat algae, if they're lucky.