Welcome to the apocalypse friends, and no not the zombie apocalypse (although that would be a lot cooler). Today, I will be discussing the antibiotic apocalypse aka the rise of antibiotic resistance. This is a scary time in science right now because in just a number of years, we could go from being able to treat mild bacterial infections to having them kill us and our loved ones. I don’t know about you guys, but I want to know more about this threat to our health and so I’m gonna give you all the rundown right now, let’s jump in!
Let’s go over the basics before we go into more detail. According to my trusty source the CDC, some bacteria have antibiotic-resistant mechanisms that help them survive when other bacteria die from antibiotics. These antibiotic-resistance bacteria can multiply and spread their resistance genes to other bacteria. These microorganisms are able to spread between people and animals leading to increased number of these resistant organisms in a number of people. In a world of globalization, this makes the spread of these bacteria that much easier. There is a rapidly increasing number of organisms becoming resistant in the world due to these antibiotic resistant genes being spread. Antibiotics are life saving drugs and if bacteria become completely resistant to them, they will not be able to do their job anymore and people will start dying of seemingly little bacterial infections. An example of how a bacteria becomes antibiotic resistant is given by the CDC with E. coli. If the E. Coli has the mcr-1 gene, then they can make it so that colistin (the antibiotic) cannot attach to the outside cell wall.
According to the organization Animals Australia, superbugs are defined as “bacteria that have become resistant to more than one antibiotic.” This poses a huge threat to the basic health of humans because if bacteria become resistant to even our most powerful antibiotics, then we are going to be going back into the “dark ages of medicine” as former UK prime minister David Cameron said. This article also discusses antibiotic use in the animal agriculture industry. The animal agriculture industry uses antibiotics as a “preventative” measure so that the animals they are raising do not get sick since they are all closely packed together in confined pens. They are also used as growth promoters for the animals. This abuse of antibiotics in animals is a huge contributor to the growth and spread of antibiotic resistant genes and bacteria. According to another article by the CDC (if you can’t tell I really like them haha), there is no federal set and approved definition of “antibiotic-free” meat. The clearest is can be defined is as the meat not having residue of antibiotics in them, but even with this, they can still carry and spread antibiotic resistant bacteria. This is super messed up in my opinion because people don’t know that they are eating and spreading resistant bacteria. I feel that there should be more regulation when it comes to the use of antibiotic drugs in the animal industry because they are a major contributor to the problem.
It is easy to turn a blind eye to these problems and say “the scientists will figure it out, we’ll be fine” but everyone needs to do their best to not abuse antibiotics and realize that this is a growing problem. There has not been any major antibiotic discoveries in years according to Animals Australia’s article and this further emphasizes the severity of the situation. It is crazy to think that in a short amount of time, we could be dealing with the impact of this antibiotic apocalypse. Let’s hope we can find a solution in time.
So that was pretty heavy and scary, I hope you guys aren’t freaking out too much (although I understand if you are because I am too!) As is customary, I am going to have some memes below to raise your spirits a little! See you next week!!
And if you didn’t catch the meme in the title…
this last one is dedicated to all the people who stop their antibiotics early and use them for viral infections:
Microbiology 