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    Greenland: The Perfect Place To Study Antibiotic Contamination
    By News Staff | October 15th 2012 11:00 AM | 3 comments | Print | E-mail | Track Comments
    Greenland has areas of very clean water, the like of which just does not exist in developed nations, but also highly polluted water, making it an excellent location for studying the environmental impacts of chemicals

    More than 10,000 tons of antibiotics are consumed in Europe each year and an estimated 30-60% of those pass through animals and humans completely unchanged. These different substances can then reach the ocean via hospitals, municipal sewage, fish farms and run-off from agriculture and landfills.

    A research group from the University of Gothenburg wanted to examine the potential effects of accumulating antibiotics in the seabed, so off to Greenland they went.

    “Greenland has no sewage treatment whatsoever, which means that waste water from inhabited areas is discharged straight into the sea,” says Maria Granberg. “So Greenland is home to both very clean and very polluted waters, which is great for comparing environmentally pristine areas with polluted ones.”

    The soft sediments on the seabed act as a reservoir for hard-to-break-down substances that are released into the environment. Even substances that are not discharged directly into the sea gradually find their way there from the land and air via rainwater. This means that antibiotics can affect marine sediment ecosystems over a long period, with detrimental effects on natural marine communities of bacteria, among other things.

    The marine sediment bacteria being studied are also important from a global perspective as they metabolize both nitrogen and carbon, which are linked to both eutrophication and climate problems. A key aspect is also that resistance genes can be transferred between bacteria.

    “We know very little about how antibiotics affect natural systems and how antibiotic resistance develops and spreads in these systems,” says Granberg. “This knowledge is, however, vital if we are to identify the sources of, and understand, the mechanisms behind the development of antibiotic resistance, which constitutes a threat to both the functioning of ecosystems and human health.”

    Comments

    Bonny Bonobo alias Brat
    This means that antibiotics can affect marine sediment ecosystems over a long period, with detrimental effects on natural marine communities of bacteria, among other things.
    The marine sediment bacteria being studied are also important from a global perspective as they metabolize both nitrogen and carbon, which are linked to both eutrophication and climate problems. A key aspect is also that resistance genes can be transferred between bacteria. “We know very little about how antibiotics affect natural systems and how antibiotic resistance develops and spreads in these systems,” says Granberg. “This knowledge is, however, vital if we are to identify the sources of, and understand, the mechanisms behind the development of antibiotic resistance, which constitutes a threat to both the functioning of ecosystems and human health.”
    And scientists wonder why many of the public have reservations about releasing genetically modified organisms (GMOs) into the environment, after very few, reassuring long term studies have been done and why they also have concerns about the environmental impact of spraying copious amounts of Roundup and Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) for example into the environment and then they call them 'anti-science' for having these reservations and concerns. 

    It seems to me that the problem with science is that often the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing and consequently the results can be catastrophic and irreversible, like our Australian cane toads for example and now probably this!
    —
    Make love not war
    Helen Barratt | 10/15/12 | 14:41 PM
    Gerhard Adam
    Unfortunately, I have to agree with you, but for a different reason.  The problem isn't that we weren't aware of what antibiotics did.  We simply assumed that we could indiscriminately kill bacteria [or at least expose them] without regard.  We possessed the knowledge of this all along, but elected to ignore it.

    Now that we're beginning to appreciate that bacteria are more than "pests", we're beginning to realize that perhaps we were a bit too cavalier in our approach.

    Makes one wonder about the effects of hormones and other biologics that get disposed by the medical and veterinary community.
    Gerhard Adam | 10/15/12 | 15:37 PM
    They ignored the knowledge because it didn't seem important. It was outside the purview. To quote a great comedian, there are the things you don't know you don't know. Ecology is complex, and we have (rounding to whole numbers) zero understanding of it. It's perfectly reasonable and rational to be cautious and dare I say conservative about new things. Ask Madame Curie.

    Maybe GMO isn't new in the sense that every organism is genetically modified by nature, but being able to hose down a crop with enough Roundup™ to kill corn is new. That's one of the sorts of concern I have about GMO's - not so much human health, which is relatively easier to test for then environmental effects. And less important.

    Since Gerhard mentioned it, hormone pollution and hormone analogues are scary too. It's appropriate to wonder about it in a laboratory - until you know better, you should be scared if it's in the river.

    If someone proposed dumping millions of tons of synthetic chemicals directly into the rivers and seas for its own sake, they'd be run out of town. But it's okay if it's a byproduct of a particular, private choice of how to run an industry. There's no such thing as an externality.

    Onanymous (not verified) | 10/16/12 | 04:15 AM