Antibiotic resistance microbes

[pvnisher]

Figured the high density of infectious disease experts on this site made it a great place to pose this question.

We've heard for years that using hand sanitizer and anti bacterial soap was leading to a rise of resistant microbes.
Given the current practices of hosing nearly everything down with chemicals 24/7, what's the long term impact? It's been overshadowed by the immediate concern, but seems there will be some impact in some way. And probably not good.

Surge of resistant super bugs? Kids with allergies skyrocketing?

[nyker]

I am sure some super resistant staph variant will emerge and a couple years later will cause some issues. Sort of like the c diff. problems that started a few years back, but more widespread.

[Iguru]

Antibiotics are different than antimicrobials.
Antibiotics are used to treat internal infections like urinary tract, bacterial sinus infections, or cuts and scrapes that get infected.
We have already seen what their overuse, thanks in large part to the livestock industry, can do with the rise of infectious "superbugs" like salmonella and resistant strains of C Diff, E coli and staph and strep bacteria.
Antimicrobials on the other hand are used to sanitize surfaces like hands and countertops. Alcohol is a common one to kill many bacteria, and destroy viruses. Quats are becoming more and more common as the more toxic, environmentally persistent antimocrobials like triclosan and PCMX are being phased out. Hydrogen peroxide and it's derivative, peroxyacetic acid are used in food preparation plants due to being highly effective, and their low toxicity after rapid environmental degradation. It is anybody's guess when microbes will develop resistance to these agents, but it is probably easier to develop new antimicrobials than to develop new antibiotics.

PS, I am not an expert in the subject, but I did work in the analytical lab at Ecolab who is a leader in manufacturing sanitization products, so I am at least very familiar with application and efficacy of them.

[nunns]

I am also not an expert but I agree with Iguru. Overuse of antibiotics is dangerous because of the possibility of mutation of a bacteria to become resistant to that antibiotic. That mutant is then passed to a new host, and possibly through the population, until it is widespread.

In my opinion the overuse of antimicrobials (and the entire COVID situation) is also dangerous, but for a different reason: our dousing down of every surface in the world with antimicrobials, combined with our lack of being outside enough, and our reduction in exercise as a society (hard to believe that was even possible until now), combined with our rate of obesity likely increasing even more, is leading to even weaker immune systems than we already had.

Washing your hands every 20 minutes is a great way to keep from getting COVID, but a terrible way to keep your immune system primed against infectious agents in general. Not to mention that a "bored" immune system is more likely to resort to autoimmune disorders and allergy development (see the hygiene hypothesis).

I don't know if Dave B is reading this thread or not; I believe he IS an expert and could comment better than I can.

Sean Nunn

[mtnkub]

To summarize: No, (over)use of antimicrobials (handsanitizers etc.) will not lead to antibiotic resistance.

Regarding immune-effect of antimicrobial overuse, i used to make similar arguments. Not sure if they are valid or not. But I certainly wouldn't worry about it during a pandemic. (And you could always keep your immune system from being bored by getting a flu shot this season. And hopefully the COVID vaccine early next year).

[ezabielski]

Figured the high density of infectious disease experts on this site made it a great place to pose this question.

I hope you're joking.

[Iguru]

To summarize: No, (over)use of antimicrobials (handsanitizers etc.) will not lead to antibiotic resistance.

Regarding immune-effect of antimicrobial overuse, i used to make similar arguments. Not sure if they are valid or not. But I certainly wouldn't worry about it during a pandemic. (And you could always keep your immune system from being bored by getting a flu shot this season. And hopefully the COVID vaccine early next year).

I have never gotten a flu shot, and the last time I had the flu was in 2000. It was terrible for 3 days, but Tylenol made it so I could get out of bed and move around a little.
This year however, I am going to get a flu shot, as you say to "keep my immune system from getting bored".
And of course, if a covid vaccine proves effective, I will get that too.

[justiner]

Figured the high density of infectious disease experts on this site made it a great place to pose this question.

I hope you're joking.

Hey I follow some pretty compelling people on Twitter.

[mtnkub]

Figured the high density of infectious disease experts on this site made it a great place to pose this question.

I hope you're joking.

Wouldn't consider myself an expert. But i actually did my PhD research at an institute for immunology and virology.

[nunns]

Depending on how you define "high" he may or may not have been joking. Also depending on how you define "expert". There is a fair number of fairly educated people on here. See previous post for one example.


Sean Nunn

[pvnisher]

Figured the high density of infectious disease experts on this site made it a great place to pose this question.

I hope you're joking.

The stay-at-home orders (or were they requests?) also exposed the high number of constitutional and jurisprudence scholars who choose to hike 14ers.

Joking aside, I have actually found this site to be a good source of information on a number of topics. Maybe I'm just lazy and don't want to create new logins for other sites, or maybe I feel at home here with usernames I've known for a long time, or maybe it's just that this doesn't devolve quite as quickly into a hate-filled ragefest as other public forums (fora?), but I like posing off-trail topics to this group.