By: Ned Bedinger

Ned Bedinger — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 04:33:11 +0000

Back when we still used to think of drug resistance as a feature conferred to pathogenic bacteria by genetic mutation, I was a student attending a meeting of the World Aquaculture Association, and that is where I first heard of plasmid transfer. A scientist presented us with a report on current ocean ecology research, and described evidence of plasmid transfer in the study of a marine garbage dumping site where NYC’s medical waste was being dumped. Especially troublesome was the location of the waste in the study–it was from an offshore dumping site some 100 miles off the coast of New Jersey, USA. As it happened, NYC garbage included medical waste, and was routinely towed on barges to the ocean site and dumped, with the expectation that, because the site was on the outer edge of the continental shelf, all the dumped garbage would sink into submarine canyons and never be seen or heard from again.
When med waste (syringes, etc) started washing up on the New Jersey shore, it looked bad and there were outcries from the environmental community about ocean dumping of med waste. But when the information about plasmid transfer in ocean dumping sites reached our ears, I think we all caught a glimpse of something truly horrifying: When we dumped medical waste into the sea, we were creating an enhanced evolution laboratory where pathogens were being given unprecedented opportunities, far greater than nature and evolution alone could ever design, to reinvent themselves as super diseases.
That was 20+ years ago. I have been reminded about the strange brew we’ve made of the oceans every time I hear a report about unaccountable marine mammal deaths and behaviors resembling suicide by self-stranding. About 15 years ago, I myself contracted cellulitis (an infection in the fluid space between the cells, very difficult to identify the pathogen) after only a few minutes standing in the water at an urban boat launch ramp on Puget Sound. Coincidentally, a family friend who had recently moved to a beach house in Southern California contracted “flesh eating bacteria”, and was in a dire condition of illness and convalescence for years afterwards.
Ed’s report on drug-resistant pathogens reminds me of these things. They haven’t been enough to drive me away from the marine environment, but I try hard to stay out of the water until I am far from urban areas, and to be sure I don’t have any open cuts, scrapes, or even athlete’s foot, before I step in. I would cross an ocean to avoid a marine dumping sites, even though I believe that medical waste is now incinerated instead of dumped.
Thanks, Ed. Your topic is a sign of the times, and something we all need to be considering while we rethink and re-engineer modern life to be greener, healthier, and more sustainable.

By: Robert V Sobczak

Robert V Sobczak — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 17:29:34 +0000

Anytime one goes under surgery, they are put under the risk of those super bugs, and its a race that we are losing as you say. You’d think we’d win with our bigger brains, … but sadly, we are vastly outnumbered. And what’s that saying about kids: they don’t outsmart you because they are smarter, they just have more time. That also applies in this case.

Comments on: The secret of drug-resistant bubonic plague

By: Ned Bedinger

By: Robert V Sobczak