Naturally the benign bacteria tend to be much weaker than pathogenic bacteria. This said, the .01 to .1% of bacteria left on the hands after hand sanitizer use are the strongest and most aggressive. At any one time there are billions of bacteria inhabiting the human hands, leaving hundreds of thousands of the strongest bacteria to reproduce in a highly nutritious environment. Bacteria can reproduce through 100,000 generations in the same amount of time as one human generation (Bettelheim). Any gene that benefits bacteria will be naturally selected much quicker than the evolution of humans. The frequent use of alcohol based hand sanitizers in reality speeds up the evolution of pathogens because their new environment is extremely advantageous. Relating to the big picture, staphylococcus, you may have heard of staph infection, and streptococcus, respiratory infection, are just two of the many strains of bacteria resistant to most antibiotics given to treat them (Bettelheim). We shouldn't be concerned with being bacteria free because the more we use hand sanitizer throughout the day the more we develop pools of resistant bacteria on our hands.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Journal 11 Revision
Aside from killing good bacteria on our skin, using hand sanitizer promotes antibiotic resistance among bacteria. This works by killing only the 99.99% of bacteria that can be killed by ethyl alcohol. The other .01% can reproduce. This percentage is the strongest portion of bacteria. The alcohol increases the rate of natural selection on the hands. Frequent use will only allow these bacteria to exist killing everything else multiple times a day, leaving behind a good environment for the strong pathogens to replicate. There have been other studies with medicines such as penicillin that show reduced effectiveness of use after too much use. This has global effects. It increases the demand for new antibiotics if we can only use them until the bacteria are immune.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Good job, Dillon. A few more changes, just to smooth things out:
ReplyDeleteBenign bacteria naturally tend to be much weaker than pathogenic bacteria. This said, the .01 to .1% of bacteria left on the hands after hand sanitizer is used are the strongest and most aggressive. At any one time, there are billions of bacteria inhabiting the human hands, leaving hundreds of thousands of the strongest bacteria to reproduce in a highly nutritious environment. Bacteria can reproduce through 100,000 generations in the same amount of time as one human generation (Bettelheim). Any gene that benefits bacteria will be naturally selected more quickly than the evolution of humans (WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?). In reality, the frequent use of alcohol based hand sanitizers speeds up the evolution of pathogens, because their new environment is extremely advantageous. Relating to the big picture, staphylococcus, most commonly referred to as a "staph infection," and streptococcus, a respiratory infection, are just two of the many strains of bacteria resistant to most antibiotics given to treat them (Bettelheim). In the end, the more we use hand sanitizer throughout the day the more we develop pools of resistant bacteria on our hands.