[h=1]Deadly superbugs from hospitals get stronger in the sewers and could end up in the Pacific Ocean[/h] Scientists at the
Environmental Protection Agency recently announced they had discovered a lethal superbug ? the same one that caused outbreaks at
UCLA and two other Los Angeles-area hospitals ? in sewage at one of those plants. They declined to name the facility.
EPA scientists did not test treated wastewater flowing out of the plant to determine whether it still contained
CRE, or carbapenem-resistant enterobacteriaceae.
But a growing number of studies show sewage plants can't kill the superbugs. Instead the facilities serve as "a luxury hotel" for drug-resistant bacteria, a place where they thrive and grow stronger, said Pedro Alvarez, a professor of environmental engineering at
Rice University, one of the scientists studying the problem.
Alvarez and other researchers say the failure of sewage plants to eliminate the dangerous bacteria is one way they may be spreading from hospitals to the environment.
"Chlorine is just not doing it," Alvarez said of the treatment used by most plants...
