Bacteria over 30,000 years old were recovered from the Yukon permafrost in Canada and the DNA shows that the bacteria were able to resist antibiotics. This finding by Gerard D. Wright of McMaster University in Ontario, Canada is the first direct evidence that the resistance to antibiotics is a natural phenomenon and didn’t just come after antibiotics were used for modern medicine.
This has long been a theory, but there was never any evidence to support it. This new finding reinforces the need to use antibiotics only when necessary because of the possibility of the body becoming resistant to them.
A microbiologist with New York University, Martin Blaser, said, “The face that the genes for resistance are so ancient and widespread means there is no easy solution to the problem of resistance – we will never invent a super antibiotic that clears everything up.”
The sample of the bacteria’s DNA was gathered from a layer of mud that was about 20 feet under the surface. The layer was once sediment around an ancient lake. Right above that layer of mud was a layer of volcanic ash. There was also DNA from ancient animals from the ice-age, such as the mammoth. All of the genes that give bacteria today the ability to resist antibiotics were present in the sample.
Dr Wright said, “Antibiotic resistance is part of the natural ecology of the planet, and this finding is a cautionary note about how we use these things…Antibiotics are remarkable resources that need to be carefully husbanded.’
The use of antibiotics in such a widespread manner has led to the development of bacteria that can resist many different types of antibiotics. Most doctors in the United States are more discriminate today in prescribing antibiotics, but there are many farmers that inject antibiotics into their animals in order to see faster growth. In addition, antibiotics are still often overused in poor countries.
