JV McArthur, RC Tuckfield, AH Lindell, C Baker-Austin - 2011
AUTHORS: 1Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, University of Georgia, Aiken, South Carolina 29802, 2CEFAS, Weymouth, UK.
REFERENCE: Proceedings of the 2011 Georgia Water Resources Conference, held April 11?13, 2011, at the University of Georgia.
Abstract. Industrially polluted streams and rivers are of
great concern to public health officials and environmental
regulators. A lesser known problem is that some water
resources have become reservoirs of antibiotic resistance
genes that can, under natural conditions, be transferred to
water-borne pathogens. The current opinion in the scientific
community is that the rapid and continuing increase
in antibiotic resistance found in clinical settings is caused
by the misuse and overuse of antibiotics in medicine and
agriculture. We present here a summary of studies, primarily
at the Savannah River Site (South Carolina), that
demonstrate that bacteria exposed to heavy metal pollution
show elevated levels of antibiotic resistance (AR) and
multiple antibiotic resistance (MAR) without ever being
directly exposed to antibiotics.
