Now This is Scary: Superbug Resistant to Last-Resort Antibiotics Makes Way to Food Chain

The zombie apocalypse doesn’t need to happen to end civilization. A few of these superbugs swimming around in everyday food would though.

Via Morguefile.
Via Morguefile.

If you’ve read this article: Antibiotic resistance will mean the end of just about everything as we know it (Salon.com) based on the author’s read of this literally terrifying article, Imagining the Post-Antibiotics Future, then this news will set you back on your heels – Carbapenem-resistant bacteria has been found in Canadian squid that was imported from South Korea.

How does this little bit of food industry news become really scary? From Maryn McKenna, “Very Serious Superbugs in Imported Seafood,” Wired.com:

…the concern is that the DNA conferring this resistance passes from this bacterium into the vast colony of diverse bacteria that live in your gut for your entire life, becoming incorporated into your gut flora and posing a risk of drug-resistant illness at some future point when the balance of your immune system slips.

That this was found on seafood—a type of food that we tend to undercook and sometimes eat raw—just increases the risk of transmission. And that’s not even to mention the possibility that bacteria containing the gene spread to other seafood or other foods in that store, or in the kitchens of anyone unlucky enough to bring them home.

Now that’s just plain frightening.