Read the following article from Science Daily: Disinfectants May Promote Growth of Superbugs
What is antibiotic resistance? How do bacteria become resistant? What problems does cause?
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
What is antibiotic resistance?
Read the following article from Science Daily: Disinfectants May Promote Growth of Superbugs
What is antibiotic resistance? How do bacteria become resistant? What problems does cause?
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Purell, soap and other disinfectants are a daily part of our lives to try to keep the bacteria out of our bodies. I thought it was kinda scary that bacterias are starting to become resistant to even these. We will have to come up with some other way to block bacteria soon. If the bacteria and other germs become more and more resistant this just increases our risk of catching more common diseases. It is also scary for the people in the hospital because they are at an even higher risk of causing more problems in their health, if the bacteria do start to become immune.
ReplyDeleteso, if what this artical saying is true then we shouldn't use disinfectant so often. I believe we should be really careful because if super germs are create not only people who are sick will be in danger, but so will people with HIV. They will be the most affected and most endangered because of there weak immune system.
ReplyDeleteAntibiotic resistance is a mutation some bacteria have that make them not affected by antibiotics. When using hand sanitizer, almost all of the bacteria on your hand gets killed, but some bacteria with mutations will survive since they have an antibiotic resistance. Since bacteria divide so quickly, This will mean its copies will also have antibiotic resistance, and hand sanitizer will not be able to kill the bacteria. This could cause problems for people who are infected by the bacteria, since antibiotic treatments won't work for them.
ReplyDeleteAntibiotic resistance is when bacteria is no longer affected by antibiotics (ex: disinfectant). The higher amounts of disinfectant used, the more resistant the bacteria became and the easier the bacteria adapted to the disinfectant (as shown in the experiment conducted by Researchers in Ireland). Some bacteria are already able to adapt to a disinfectant without being exposed to it. This could cause major problems in places where disinfectants are used such as classrooms, hospitals, and even homes. Now dangerous bacteria will not be affected by disinfectants and instead will spread faster and easier.
ReplyDeleteDuring the swine flu outbreak, all of the docotrs and medical experts told people to disinfect hands and surfaces, so that swine flu causing germs would die. In principle, this is a very good idea. However, new reasearch shows that this could actually cause certain germs to become "supergerms". This new form of germ adapts to the the chemicals in disinfectants and becomes immune to it. These new germs are now able to reproduce unharmed. Scientists have also found that certain bacteria who become immune to disinfectants also become immune to antibiotics, without even being exposed to any. This is causing some concern, because now some diseases caused by bacteria will have the possibility of becoming untreatable.
ReplyDeleteAntibiotic resistance is when bacteria are resistant to products such as soap and handsanitizer. Bacteria adapts to certain soaps so they are no longer affective and do not kill the germs on you hands. We know this because of some experiments done in ireland. When all bacteria becomes resistant to the dissinfectants we will need a new solution to kill bacteria. This will affect people because they can get even simple bacterias such as a stomach ache.
ReplyDeleteIt is important that we use disenfectants properly. If we do not use them enough then people can become ill or worse, especially in hospitals. However we cannot abuse the ability to kill most bacteria. The 99.9% of bacteria will die, but the .1% that is left alive is resistant to the disefectants. That .1% will reproduce and pass on the genes that allow bacteria to survive if they are exposed to the disenfectant. Eventualy this will cause a new breed of "super bacteria" to exist, and there will be nothing we can do to kill them. Some of these super bacteria have mutated and have become resistant to antibiotics that would normally kill them. If we continue to abuse disenfectants then it will eventually kill us all beacuse we will have no way to treat the illness or infection.
ReplyDeleteThe part I don't understand about this is if over-use of antibiotics is promoting antibiotic resistance, then why not make antibiotics harder to get?
ReplyDeleteAlso, doctors often give out antibiotics to people with colds. However, colds are caused by viruses, not bacteria, so antibiotics are useless against them. Doctors should be more careful about the preswcriptions they give out.
Antibiotic resistance is when an antibiotic isn't able to stop bacterial growth and it continues to spread and grow. Antibiotics can become resistant to antibiotics in two cases: there's a mutation in the cell, or they gain resistance through another cell of bacteria. This may cause some problems because if even these antibiotics that have been study through medicine for so many years go wrong, then what is there for people to turn to when their sick? I think it's kind of scary to think about.
ReplyDeleteI found this article very informing because i had no idea that in some ways our antibiotics actually are making bacteria stronger and resistant to antibiotics. How this works is, the disinfectants that we use kill most germs and bacteria but the small percent that it does't kill, survives and reproduces with stronger resistance against the antibiotics and disinfectants. As the bacteria evolves and becomes stronger,it might be harder to fight them off and people could be sick way more often. What scientist and doctors need to do is to find a antibacterial taht can kill all bacteria including the bacteria that has adapted.
ReplyDelete-Ali R. 6*