Drug-Resistant Bacteria Found in Arctic

[sandy]

There may be no place on the surface of Earth where germs dangerously resistant to antibiotics have not spread.

Swedish researchers now find drug-resistant bacteria have infiltrated one of the last outposts of wilderness, the Arctic, hitching a ride way up north on birds.

The fact that these microbes have now reached one of the most remote places on Earth sheds light on how rampant such germs have become closer to home, researchers said.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,325686,00.html

 

[spidergoat]

You gotta stop looking at Fox, it's just going to make you worry more.

 

[sandy]

I don't worry about anything. Ever. Fox has a great Sci site. I find lots of good stuff there.

 

[Exhumed]

The scientists investigated bacteria from the Arctic with the assumption that germs in such distant climes would be far beyond the reach of human influence.

"We were extremely surprised" to find otherwise, said researcher Björn Olsen, an ornithologist and infectious disease physician at Uppsala University in Sweden.

It might have had nothing to do with humans in this case. Antibiotic resistance predates antibiotic use by humans.