Sludge Watch ==> Flies carry antibiotic resistant pathogens that can transfer resistance to other bacteria

[Maureen Reilly]

Sludgewatch Admin:
This is fascinating.  This is why the EPA needs to do what the National 
Academy of Science instructed them to do...look at the role of sludge in 
promoting antibiotic resistance.  Here we see that flies can be the vector 
to take antibiotic resistant bacteria and can transfer those traits to other 
bacteria.

Now pity the poor folks in Hinkley who are looking at the massive open air 
sewage stockpiling proposed by Nursery Products. These guys hope to start 
trucking sludge out into big stinking piles in the desert just a few miles 
from their homes and schools by January 2007.    The fly problems 
experienced by neighbors to the previous Nursery Products site in Adelanto 
were ghastly.  Since Nursery Products again doesn't propose to follow the 
503 requirements for composting, Hinkley is afraid...with good reason...that 
the odours and flies will again cause illnesses, like they did in Adelanto.

In Adelanto the San Bernardino Environmental Health Dept got over a hundred 
messages of complaint from individuals, schools, work places...but failed to 
do anything substantive to address the problem. It turns out that the County 
had a telephone complaint hotline...but is legally obligated only to respond 
to written complaints.  So the telephone complaints fell on deaf ears.

.........................................................................................................................
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=45275


Houseflies Collected In Fast Food Restaurants Found To Carry Antibiotic 
Resistant Bacteria
Main Category: MRSA / Drug Resistance News
Article Date: 17 Jun 2006 - 5:00am (PST)
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      Useful Article?
        a.. Digg It

        b.. Del.icio.us



Houseflies in food-handling and serving facilities carry and may have the 
capacity to transfer antibiotic-resistant and potentially virulent bacteria 
say researchers Kansas State University. They report their findings in the 
June 2006 issue of the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

Multi-drug resistance is a serious problem plaguing the world today as the 
number of antibiotics effective at treating human infections continues to 
decline. Although it is not yet well understood, preliminary research has 
indicated a connection between antibiotic resistance and food of animal 
origin. Experts are now examining the role that insects that develop in 
decaying organic material (specifically manure) may play in transmitting 
antibiotic resistant bacteria to residential settings.

Enterococci are commonly found in animal and human digestive tracts and are 
known for their frequent multi-antibiotic resistance. Two of the 26 species, 
Enterococcus faecalis and Enterococcus faecium are responsible for the 
majority of human infections. In the study the digestive tracts of 260 
houseflies collected from five fast food restaurants were tested for 
enteroccoci and characterized. Ninety-seven percent tested positive for the 
bacteria with E. faecalis identified in the majority of the isolates 
(88.2%). E. faecalis was found to carry virulence genes and have varying 
percentages of resistance to tetracycline, erythromycin, streptomycin, 
ciproflaxin and kanamycin. E. faecium showed up at a rate of 6.8%.

"This study showed that houseflies in food-handling and serving facilities 
carry antibiotic-resistant and potentially virulent enterococci that have 
the capacity for horizontal transfer of antibiotic resistance genes to other 
bacteria," say the researchers.

###

L. Macovei, L. Zurek. 2006. Ecology of antibiotic resistance genes: 
characterization of enterococci from houseflies collected in food settings. 
Applied and Environmental Microbiology, 72. 6: 4028-4035.

Contact: Carrie Patterson
American Society for Microbiology




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Ecology of Antibiotic Resistance Genes: Characterization of Enterococci from 
Houseflies Collected in Food Settings
Lilia Macovei and Ludek Zurek*
Department of Entomology, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas 66506
Received 5 January 2006/ Accepted 29 March 2006
In this project, enterococci from the digestive tracts of 260 houseflies 
(Musca domestica L.) collected from five restaurants were characterized. 
Houseflies frequently (97% of the flies were positive) carried enterococci 
(mean, 3.1 x 103 CFU/fly). Using multiplex PCR, 205 of 355 randomly selected 
enterococcal isolates were identified and characterized. The majority of 
these isolates were Enterococcus faecalis (88.2%); in addition, 6.8% were E. 
faecium, and 4.9% were E. casseliflavus. E. faecalis isolates were 
phenotypically resistant to tetracycline (66.3%), erythromycin (23.8%), 
streptomycin (11.6%), ciprofloxacin (9.9%), and kanamycin (8.3%). 
Tetracycline resistance in E. faecalis was encoded by tet(M) (65.8%), tet(O) 
(1.7%), and tet(W) (0.8%). The majority (78.3%) of the 
erythromycin-resistant E. faecalis isolates carried erm(B). The conjugative 
transposon Tn916 and members of the Tn916/Tn1545 family were detected in 
30.2% and 34.6% of the identified isolates, respectively. E. faecalis 
carried virulence genes, including a gelatinase gene (gelE; 70.7%), an 
aggregation substance gene (asa1; 33.2%), an enterococcus surface protein 
gene (esp; 8.8%), and a cytolysin gene (cylA; 8.8%). Phenotypic assays 
showed that 91.4% of the isolates with the gelE gene were gelatinolytic and 
that 46.7% of the isolates with the asa1 gene aggregated. All isolates with 
the cylA gene were hemolytic on human blood. This study showed that 
houseflies in food-handling and -serving facilities carry 
antibiotic-resistant and potentially virulent enterococci that have the 
capacity for horizontal transfer of antibiotic resistance genes to other 
bacteria. Applied and Environmental Microbiology, June 2006, p. 4028-4035, 
Vol. 72, No. 6


* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of Entomology, Kansas 
State University, Manhattan, KS 66506. Phone: (785) 532-4731. Fax: (785) 
532-6232. E-mail: lzurek at ksu.edu . 
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