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Swedish exchange students who studied in India and in central Africa returned from their sojourns with an increased diversity of antibiotic resistance genes in their gut microbiomes. The research is published 10 August in Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, a journal of the American Society for Microbiology.
In the study, the investigators found a 2.6-fold increase in genes encoding resistance to sulfonamide, a 7.7-fold increase in trimethoprim resistance genes, and a 2.6-fold increase in resistance to beta-lactams, all of this without any exposure to antibiotics among the 35 exchange students. These resistance genes were not particularly abundant in the students prior to their travels, but the increases are nonetheless quite significant.
...
in fact, the increases the investigators observed in abundance and diversity of resistance genes occurred despite the fact that none of the students took antibiotics either before or during travel. The increase seen in resistance genes could have resulted from ingesting food containing resistant bacteria, or from contaminated water, the investigators write. Providing further support for the hypothesis that resistance genes increased during travel, genes for extended spectrum beta-lactamase, which dismembers penicillin and related antibiotics, was present in just one of the 35 students prior to travel, but in 12 students after they returned to Sweden.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 24 2015, @02:35AM
Everybody wants the money, and globalization means that greedy fucking assholes will travel the fucking globe to accumulate the money. The only way to stop greed is to change human nature, and short of complete genocide of every trace of human scum, that is not ever going to happen. You can try walling up every border between every country, but history demonstrates that the Iron Curtain did not work. Because greed.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by NCommander on Monday August 24 2015, @02:54AM
Um, no?
Some people travel because they want to. When SoylentNews was launched, I was living out of a backpack in a tiny flat in Panama City. At that point, I'd been backpacking over over a year and a half, going from Asia, across North America, and Europe. In 2014, I had spent several months collectively in Costa Rica, and Panama, with trips to Nicaragua, Germany, Poland, Hong Kong, Machu, Mayalisa (I was present in Kumla Lumpar when flight MH370 vanished), Singapore, the Phillipines, transits across Japan, the Dominican Republic, and probably a few other ones I've forgotten. When I finally got tired of working in information technology, moved to Anchorage to do some soul searching, ulitmately quit my job, and worked towards changing my field.
In terms of domestic travel, in 2014, I also spent considerable time in the Boston area, and New Hampshire meeting with staff members of SoylentNews to work out the details of incorporation for this site. I'm not particularly wealthy. After I decided to return to emergency response/firefighting, I drove from Anchorage to Rochester, making sidetrips to Oregon, New Mexico, Texas, and a round trip Rochester->Miami to get things I left in storage.
I've been to all 50 states, lived in six, visited 40+ countries, and I have a bucket list goal of visiting all 193 (as of writing) UN recognized countries before I die. I'm not independently wealthy. Most of the time, I was living on 1-1.5k USD per month (including travel expenses). If I wanted to go from Rochester to Panama, and do it cheaply, I could do it via air, rail, bus, or even hitchhiking (I once famously had to hitchhike to a conference at my old company because I got stranded in a winter storm, and couldn't be rebooked in time out of EWR).
I'd honestly love to know what antigens my body carries for things that don't exist in the Americas; I've already had a ton of inoculations for things that simply went extinct in the United States.
Speaking broadly, globalization is *not* a bad thing. A united economy helps keep the peace (why would you declare war on your best business partners), and does raise the standard of living. Furthermore, competition causes innovation. The United States does not locally produce much of what it used to because we can't produce as cheaply as other places. As such, we've focused on exports that require a higher industry base or specialized sciences such as aviation (i.e. Boeing and Lockheed). The problem is that globalization is that corruption in local governments divert funds and prevent said standard of living from increasing.
Still always moving
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 24 2015, @03:19AM
Some people travel because they want to.
You're conveniently forgetting the disadvantage that globalization causes for people who aren't exactly like you. Some people simply don't want to travel. Globalization and trade reduce diversity of local production and severely limit employment opportunities for local people who don't travel. Consider the plight of the American steelworker, who really doesn't want to have to emigrate to China to continue working as a steelworker. Consider the plight of the American IT worker, who really doesn't want to have to emigrate to India to continue working as an IT worker. Consider the plight of any American who doesn't want to work in middle management, when every other job has inevitably been moved Overseas by globalization. Consider for a moment the lives of people who aren't you.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 24 2015, @03:48AM
You're conveniently forgetting the disadvantage that globalization causes for people who aren't exactly like you.
Or the massive advantages it yields to the majority of humanity.
Consider the plight of the American IT worker
Why should we hamstring the rest of the world to protect the American IT worker?
Consider for a moment the lives of people who aren't you.
Ditto.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 24 2015, @03:45AM
I am almost as widely traveled as you are. I kinda agree with you. But - fact is, we have a HUGE population that is in costant motion, around the globe. And, fact are facts. That population in motion does indeed cause disease, epidemics, and pandemics to spread much faster than it would have naturally. It causes lesser diseases to spread further than they would naturally.
Life is full of compromise, and we have compromised our ability to combat disease in exchange for some imagined economic benefits.
Personally, I am not in agreement with the goals of globalization. We can expect some serious epidemics in the not-distant future, due to that population in motion. How serious? Only time will tell.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 24 2015, @04:01AM
in exchange for some imagined economic benefits
It's not hard to imagine the concrete economic benefits in question, such as a better standard of living for the majority of humanity. And if some serious epidemic comes out in the future, we can always shut down that trade network till it blows over.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 24 2015, @04:22AM
I simply cannot imagine that any trade network will be permitted to be shut down, no matter how bad a pandemic might get. So long as there are people available to man the necessary positions to ship the goods, the network will remain open.
As for the benefits of those trade networks - those accrue almost exclusively to management. Worker's wages have been cut, while executive wages have been increased, again and again. You're aware that the typical CEO makes more money than 500 workers today? Only a lifetime ago, top executives only made as much as 40 of his workers combined.
So, the men and women on the factory floor are still going home to substandard housing, and eating subsistence rations, often times with no electricity or running water. Worse - those people have to deal with pollution in their homes, that didn't exist before the factories were brought to their third world countries. There are plenty of stories from both Africa and Asias of villages being overwhelmed with the detritus of manufacturing. Instead of walking a mile or so for water, they now have to walk ten miles, or pay exorbitant prices for water to be trucked in.
Perhaps I shouldn't have said "imagined economic benefits". I should have stuck with much older terms, like "exploiting the natives".
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 24 2015, @04:44PM
I simply cannot imagine that any trade network will be permitted to be shut down, no matter how bad a pandemic might get.
Well, you have once again indicated you have trouble imagining things. An obvious situation where a trade network would get shut down, in your scenario, is when "management" or their profit is threatened by the pandemic.
So, the men and women on the factory floor are still going home to substandard housing, and eating subsistence rations, often times with no electricity or running water.
Compared to what? The thing you miss here is that their substandard housing, their subsistence rations, and their occasional lack of electricity and running water gets worse with the absence of global trade.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 24 2015, @04:55PM
Gets worse in the absence of global trade? Really? How could it be worse, if the mountains of toxic refuse didn't exist?
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/04/world/asia/04pollution.html?ref=environment [nytimes.com]
http://stevendonziger.com/2014/09/30/indigenous-villagers-plan-seize-chevrons-106-million-arbitral-award-ecuador/ [stevendonziger.com]
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/gallery/2009/jun/05/waste-world-environment-day [theguardian.com]
https://www.academia.edu/5340851/The_illicit_trade_of_toxic_waste_in_Africa_The_human_rights_implications_of_the_new_toxic_colonialism [academia.edu]
Again, the more proper term might be "exploitation".
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 24 2015, @06:38PM
Gets worse in the absence of global trade? Really? How could it be worse, if the mountains of toxic refuse didn't exist?
Global trade isn't the only thing that makes mountains of toxic refuse. Exponentially growing human populations do as well. Increasing wealth, such as from global trade, results in lower human fertility and smaller mountains of toxic refuse.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Monday August 24 2015, @09:20AM
I've been rather docile for the last two months as I was working on a large project in Singapore for a month, then only visited Sydney, Melbourne and Acukland since.
However a typical month will see me visiting 2 or 3 continents. Picking up something in Singapore and I can spread in London and Manchester the next day, Rome the next week, Washington the week after, then Cairo a couple of weeks after that. That ignores the contact I have with other semi-frequent travellers in airport lounges.
The Ryan Binghams of the world will be able to spread a single virus to thousands of people in a 72 hour incubation period.
If you're doing slow-moving bus/coach/hitchhiking it doesn't spread anywhere near as fast, and pandemics can be controlled somewhat. With todays high speed long distance travel -- hourly flights from London to New York for instance, you have a right pain trying to stop a proper pandemic, even if you manage to "shut down the trade network".
Pitcairn would be fine. St Helena for now, Tristan de Cuhna, and a few other isolated places.
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Monday August 24 2015, @03:42PM
Everyone who travels is a fucking asshole?
I believe I speak for everyone who travels when I say... Fuck you.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 24 2015, @02:43AM
Probably one of those "Well that makes complete sense" studies, but it's always nice to have solid scientific tests in the history books.
(Score: 1) by _1156277 on Monday August 24 2015, @04:31AM
35 uncorrelated samples would be great, but are these exchange students uncorrelated? Or did they eat at the same dining halls, use the same public toilets, etc?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 24 2015, @05:08AM
Is there any chance that some of the students were, umm, exchanging bodily fluids?
Not much else to do until the sun comes up again ...
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Monday August 24 2015, @11:08PM
We call it the foreign exchange program.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2, Interesting) by nitehawk214 on Monday August 24 2015, @03:47PM
This is the kind of thing that epidemiology can prevent, if we spend the money to tie in the hospital systems to let people monitor this in real time instead of having to do these random extremely limited focus studies, we could make progress here.
The conclusion of this article is no surprise at all to anyone that works with this kind of data. Now, how to use the data to help solve the problem, that would be real progress.
Disclaimer: I work in this industry.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh