Bacteria That Eat Antibiotics
Startling new research contributes more information about the effectiveness of antibiotics to kill bacteria, specifically in livestock. Researchers from Harvard were trying to find microbes that could be used to convert waste into biofuels when they discovered that bacteria covered in antibiotics were not only unaffected by the drugs, but actually consumed them.
According to Discover, the researchers gathered 11 soil samples that had varying levels of man-made antibiotics to see if more drug-consuming bacteria could be found. They found that in all samples, bacteria, including Shigella and E. coli, existed that lived entirely off of the consumption of antibiotics. Some of the bacteria were thriving in conditions that contained more that 100 times the normal dose of antibiotics given to humans and more than 50 times the amount necessary to consider a bacterium resistant.
This research not only adds fuel to the fiery debate over the use of antibiotics, but suggests that bacteria resistance isn’t the only problem. If bacteria actually eat the drugs and the genes from these bacteria spread into pathogenic bacteria, standard treatments could become entirely ineffective.