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Re: Indiscriminate use of antibiotics (long rant. Sorry!)
>>>Well, the indiscriminate use of antibiotics is probably the most serious
>>>issue we face as fish keepers. <<
>
>I didn't pay much attention to the original threas, which was regarding BG
>Algae as I recall. So my appologies if I'm rehashing ground already
>covered. But...
>
>1. Is the issue related to the negative effect on our fish when nasty fish
>bacterial deseases develop immunity and wipe out our tanks. or....
>
>2. Is the issue that indescriminate use of the antibiotics in the tanks
>could inadvertantly allow nasty human bacteria that are just hanging
>around to become more resistant and thus potentially put us fishkeepers,
>freinds and family and the whole human race at risk.
>
>I know there's real concern in hospitals about that. But there's a
>difference from an infected human host (someone who's sick with a
>bacterial infection) incubating antibiotic resistent strains, and
>antibiotics in solutions (tank water) with fish as potential hosts. Or is
>there no real difference. Or do we simply don't know.
>
>Just curious.
>
Well, ask several different people and you might get several different
answers. I think the first risk is probably greater, but less serious in
its effect. It's true that fish bacteria don't infect humans much.
However, we do carry around human bacteria with us everywhere, and by
sticking hands into tanks, and being around them, we potentially bring
antibiotic resistant fish bacteria into contact potentially non resistant
human bacteria when resistance genes can be transferred between them.
Hospitals are a much bigger problem, as are doctors that will prescribe
antibiotics for viral infections just to keep demanding parents happy.
Another huge source of risk is the vast use of antibiotics in mammals that
we eat. Antibiotic resistant bacteria in cows or pigs are more likely to
infect humans directly or to transfer their resistance to gut bacteria or
to any staph bacteria around. I suppose that in reality the pathway of
transfer to humans via fish is quite a bit smaller, but still the effect
will be eventually similar.
Mostly we use very common anitbiotics, such as penicillin, tetracycline
etc. However, there are some newer antibiotics such as Gentamycin that are
coming into use. These will only be effective against pathogens for a
limited time. We can choose to use them to "cure" BG algae that will come
back anyway since the root cause hasn't been addressed, or we can use it to
cure deadly diseases and extent the life of AIDS patients, for example. It
just seems unbelievably selfish to use it on what is essentially a
fishkeeping problem best solved by other means.
For the fishkeeping community, there's a real risk of spreading antibiotic
resistant fish pathogens. I used to keep and breed gouramis, but I had a
multiply antibiotic resistant aeromonas infection spread through my tanks
and kill 64 of 67 fish. I don't breed gouramis anymore, since the bacteria
still lurk. I don't want to kill all my fish, bleach all my tanks and toss
my plants, so gouramis are essentially off the list now. (FWIW, the
aeromonas bacteria turned out to have a very long (6 week) incubation
period, which is how it made it past my standard 4 week quarantine. )
Just imagine what would happen if a single antibiotic resistant
strain of killie pathogen got loose. We'd all have to be *very* careful of
who we got fish from and those breeders who keep many strains would run a
serious danger of losing all their fish. Imagine how serious a blow to the
hobby that would be.
So I think the cardinal rules of antibiotic use still apply:
1) treat only diseases that are known to be bacterial in origin
2) maintain the treatment long enough to kill all the bacteria to avoid the
evolution of resistance (usually 10-14 days are recommended.)
Sure we're fighting a losing battle here, but it is still worth it, IMHO.
Sorry about the ranting, but you were warned! :-)
Doug
Doug Karpa Wilson
Department of Biology
Jordan Hall
Indiana University
Bloomington, IN 47405
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