Forget terrorism - This is the biggest threat out there

[Deegee]

I listened to this report in its "Farming diary" format on Friday morning, the interesting fact that was missed out of the BBC article Duke originally linked was that two countries have previously banned the use of preventative dosing of farm animals with antibiotics, (i.e if one cow is sick you dose the whole herd) iirc it was Sweden and The Netherlands, the human resistance to antibiotics has dropped in both of those countries. So yet again, we find part of the answer is before us, but this time it's not the Chinese that were at fault, but our very own farmers for this overuse of a precious commodity within our food chain, although in fairness I'm not sure how long antibiotic resistance has been an issue.

[Norfolknchance]

Very possibly. The reason the presence of antibiotic resistance is so worrying is because of the proportion of the bacterial population which has the resistance.

The abuse of antibiotics has given a selective advantage to those antibiotic resistant bacteria present already in the population, so that with each generation the selection pressure favours the bacteria with the resistance. Without the increased presence of the antibiotic selector, that bacteria has no advantage and in some cases may have a disadvantage.

Now I know how Kwacky feels when we talk about engineering/process stuff..

I read that about 5 times, still can't work out what your saying

Can you explain these bits?

the selection pressure

Without the increased presence of the antibiotic selector

Because of selective pressures, organisms with certain characteristics have an advantage when it comes to survival and reproduction. In this case it is antibiotic resistance with the antibiotic providing the pressure thus favouring the antibiotic resistant strain of organism. In normal conditions there would be no advantage, in fact the resistance it may have a detrimental effect on the organisms survival, meaning it would need more resources to survive.

antibiotic selector is something I made up, cos I'm lazy. Basically I'm saying without there being antibiotic present the individuals within the population no longer have an advantage.

Just reread that and it probably doesn't make it any clearer, sorry.

[Cav]

I believe it all stems from 'lazy' GPs who hand out Antibiotics for absolutely everything. Farmers are forced to use certain pesticides etc from what I've been told and even if they could do everything organically it would cost too much. Farming is not a wealthy occupation at all and some farmers operate at a loss.

It's a bit freaky to be fair - this whole thing. The only time I have wittingly taken antibiotics was when I was about 6, haven't used them since as I rarely get ill and if I do I man up and take it on the chin

[kiwikrasher]

Very possibly. The reason the presence of antibiotic resistance is so worrying is because of the proportion of the bacterial population which has the resistance.

The abuse of antibiotics has given a selective advantage to those antibiotic resistant bacteria present already in the population, so that with each generation the selection pressure favours the bacteria with the resistance. Without the increased presence of the antibiotic selector, that bacteria has no advantage and in some cases may have a disadvantage.

Now I know how Kwacky feels when we talk about engineering/process stuff..

I read that about 5 times, still can't work out what your saying

Can you explain these bits?

the selection pressure

Without the increased presence of the antibiotic selector

Because of selective pressures, organisms with certain characteristics have an advantage when it comes to survival and reproduction. In this case it is antibiotic resistance with the antibiotic providing the pressure thus favouring the antibiotic resistant strain of organism. In normal conditions there would be no advantage, in fact the resistance it may have a detrimental effect on the organisms survival, meaning it would need more resources to survive.

antibiotic selector is something I made up, cos I'm lazy. Basically I'm saying without there being antibiotic present the individuals within the population no longer have an advantage.

Just reread that and it probably doesn't make it any clearer, sorry.

I think I get it, and re-reading tonight it does make more sense.

Basically you were saying without the influence of human antibiotic abuse, resistant and non resistant organisms would probably balance out due to natural selective pressures, but because we have stuffed with nature yet again we have given the antibiotic resistant organisms an upper hand and their populus and evolution has grown to the point where our attempt to curb them is failing.