Scientists Plan to Fight Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria With More Bacteria
Antibiotic-resistant bacteria isn’t just for crazy movies and conspiracy theories anymore. It’s a very real threat that has the potential kill 10 million people each year. In fact, the UK ranks antibiotic resistant super-bugs as serious a threat as terrorism. Makes sense: it’s like biological warfare but without an enemy we can throw bombs at. So why is this happening and how do we stop it before we all end up with flesh eating MRSA?
How terrified would you be if you were extremely sick and the doctor said “sorry antibiotics aren’t working, we can’t do anything”? As of 2014, at least 700,000 people have died from exactly that according to the CDC– and that number is expected to drastically rise. So why? There’s a few factors we have to consider here that have gotten us to this point. The most obvious reason is that doctors are over-prescribing antibiotics for non-serious illnesses. Sure, we all want to get over our illnesses as quickly as possible, but when we have a simple cold or flu it’s probably best in the long run to just ride it out. I personally avoid antibiotics unless the situation is life threatening because they screw up the healthy bacteria in your gut and can give you some pretty unpleasant side effects. Oh also I’m not a pussy. Anyways, this may seem like something very minor, but over-prescribing has very real world consequences.
But over-prescribing to humans probably isn’t even doing the bulk of the damage. Farm animals hopped-up on antibiotics have become breeding grounds for methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). These are the animals we consume, and researchers believe there is a direct link between overusing antibiotics for farm animals and human antibiotic-resistance. To put this into perspective, as of 2014, pharmaceutical companies sold about 21 million pounds of medical antibiotics for use in consumable farm animals. That’s over three times more than they sold to doctors for human use. And with a global economy, this becomes a global health crisis. In fact, they’ve even found traces of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in our AIR. This crap has become airborne, people!
So what are we doing to stop this? Well researchers at Imperial College London and the University of Nottingham in the UK think they’ve figured it out: more bacteria. They’ve been exploring a bacteria called Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus. It’s like a super-super-bug, basically it’s a cannibal that eats its own kind. They’ve already been running tests on a medically-resistant bacteria responsible for food poisoning and the results are pretty promising. But this bacteria seems terrifying, won’t it just make humans sick after it destroys the bad bacteria? Won’t it go on a rampage? As of now, the researchers are pretty optimistic that humans won’t experience any negative side effects. Why not? This bacteria already hangs out in our gut. In fact, it helps our immune system keep us healthy. Remember I said I don’t take antibiotics because they screw up your digestive health? That’s what I meant.
They still have to test the cannibal bacteria strain on humans, but they’re pretty optimistic it will work. Not only that, but this might open up new options for combating bacteria in general. This could be the trick to breaking our antibiotic addiction.
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Randi Nord lives in Pontiac, Michigan. She is a journalist for the The Fifth Column, co-founder of Geopolitics Alert, and co-hosts a podcast about geopolitics.