SHAPIRO: So how does this actually work? I'm imagining a drug-resistant bacteria riding sidesaddle on a air pollution particle. But researchers did adjust for factors that could affect the rate of antibiotic resistance, like socioeconomic status, health expenditures and education, and it still does show this really strong and interesting association between the two. We should say that this study does not establish a causal relationship between air pollution and antibiotic resistance or examine the actual biological mechanism that might be at play here. SHAPIRO: That sounds really unpleasant, but do we know that one causes the other, or is there a chance that antimicrobial resistance is just more common in the same kinds of places that have a lot of air pollution?īARBER: Right. They're both on the rise overall, and low-income regions of the world tend to face the highest rates of both of them. Our colleague, Gabriel Spitzer, just wrote about a recent study in the journal Lancet Planetary Health that found that, globally, the rates of particulate air pollution and antibiotic-resistant infection are closely linked. And we've long known that these bacteria lurk in the soil and in waterways, but what is new is that it turns out air pollution could also be a major contributing factor to the spread of these antibiotic-resistant germs. And it's estimated this problem is just going to get worse, decades to come. A lot of these come from places like farms, hospitals, sewage treatment facilities, and over a million people died globally in 2019 from drug-resistant bacterial infections. But not any germs - we're talking about superbugs, like bacteria resistant to antibiotics. As if drug-resistant germs were not good enough, they're riding on air pollution?īARBER: Yeah. SCOTT: And how farms can support biodiversity. SCOTT: We have drug-resistant germs catching a ride on air pollution particles.īARBER: The mysterious eating habits of black holes. SHAPIRO: You've brought us three science stories that caught your eye this week. Time for this week's science roundup from our friends at NPR's Short Wave podcast, Aaron Scott and Regina Barber.
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