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Article: Waterways Carry Antibiotic Resistance.(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- Science News
- Article date:
- June 5, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 Science Service, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Bacteria that have developed immunity to antibiotic drugs pose a large and growing threat to the success of modern medicine. Three studies now find that U.S. rivers have become a major reservoir of such microbes.
Reported at the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) meeting this week in Chicago, the studies demonstrate that antibiotic resistance is literally streaming across the nation.
Ronald J. Ash of Washburn University in Topeka, Kan., sampled waterborne bacteria from 15 U.S. rivers, including the Mississippi, the Ohio, and the Colorado. He tested the microbes' resistance to ampicillin, a synthetic penicillin.
At each of the 21 sites ...