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Beware of Antibiotic Products
2/3 of American Crops Contaminated
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- Beware of Antibiotic Products
by G. Scott Alamanach Mikalauskis
- In an effort to sell more soap, many companies include antibiotic agents in their products. This can be seen especially frequently in hand soap and dishwashing soap. There is no dispute that the products, used as directed, will reduce the bacterial count of that which they are used to clean. But do they really make our lives safer? The trouble with antibiotics is that they cannot possibly kill everything, and what is left behind can develop into something far deadlier than what was there to begin with.
A single bacterium can reproduce rapidly, creating a new bacterium in about one hourıs time. A bacterium does not have to finish one reproductive cycle before starting another one, and these creatures can peel off new offspring once every twenty minutes. Usually, it is only lack of food that slows down their reproduction. Because of this fecundity, bacteria are said to mutate quickly. Though it takes as many generations for bacteria to mutate as it takes anything else, these generations come so quickly that any bacterial colony can be seen to mutate within a remarkably short period of time.
Most mutations are detrimental to survival, and mutants usually die on their own accord before they can reproduce. Occasionally a mutation has no effect one way or the other on a creatureıs survival, or the mutation is too slight to prevent survival and reproduction. But it is exceedingly rare that mutation creates a hardier organism. Because of this, mutations usually do not upset the natural order.
Mutations have an important impact on the effectiveness of antibiotics. Antibiotics, whether cooked up in a lab by scientists or extracted from nature by aboriginal medicine men, are compounds that act on the surface proteins of bacterial cell membranes. All things that live are made of cells, all cells have membranes, and all membranes are studded with proteins. The composition of these proteins vary greatly from one species to the next, and one of the first places that mutations usually appear is in the composition of surface proteins. Most human surface proteins have virtually nothing in common with bacterial surface proteins. This is why antibiotics will kill bacteria without killing us.
But what happens to bacterial surface proteins when a large bacterial colony is repeatedly exposed to an antibacterial agent? This would happen, for example, to bacteria living under a refrigerator in a kitchen that is weekly mopped with the same antibiotic soap. Though the soap may kill most of the bacteria, some would survive just due to their large numbers; it is not practical to sterilize an entire kitchen, and so some would live on.
Now most, if not all, of these bacteria would be vulnerable to common antibiotics like penicillin. Were some of these bacteria to infect a person, a course of penicillin could be prescribed, and the person would be saved. Nowadays, this is easy for us. But what if the antibiotic agent in the kitchen soap is based on penicillin? The repeated presence of this agent would create environmental pressure that is going to push the colonyıs natural mutations in a particular direction. Whereas before any mutation impaired a bacteriumıs ability to survive, under the new environment, what used to be a detriment might now be a strength. While all the old, hearty bacteria are killed off by soap, some new, scrawny bacterium might survive if his surface proteins no longer bind to penicillin.
Once this scrawny, penicillin - resistant mutant appears, there is little to prevent his taking over the kitchen. The heartier strains with which he used to have to compete with for food are being killed by the soap. Soon all bacteria in the kitchen would be descendants of this mutant, and they would all be resistant to the antibiotics in the soap. Any person infected by these bacteria is in serious trouble. We may not have an antibiotic drug we can prescribe that would be of any help. Death by infection could result.
There is a silver lining to this cloud. Bacteria reproduce asexually. Therefore, the penicillin resistance developed by one bacterium will never mix with the natural heartiness of another bacterium. There is no child combining the best of mother and father. All the offspring have one parent, and they possess all their parentıs weaknesses. If the parent was weak and scrawny (but penicillin resistant), then all its offspring will be weak and scrawny (but penicillin resistant).
If the old, hearty strains of bacteria are reintroduced into our hypothetical kitchen, and we cease the use of antibacterial agents in our soap, then those hearty strains could compete for food with the penicillin-resistant mutants. In all likelihood, the mutants would soon be wiped out. They came from a mutation, and therefore they are naturally more frail than common bacteria.
The best way to clean our homes is with the use of conventional soaps. Such products keep bacterial levels under control without creating the unnatural conditions that allow deadly mutants to dominate. Bacteria are supposed to be commonplace, and short-sighted attempts to eliminate them all only disturbs lifeıs proper balance. Death itself can result from antibiotic-resistant bacterial infection, and this is a grave reminder of the folly in upsetting that balance.
