Just wonderful - Chinese and drug resistance

From Chemical & Engineering News:

Multidrug Resistance Gene Released By Chinese Wastewater Treatment Plants
In recent years, increasing numbers of patients worldwide have contracted severe bacterial infections that are untreatable by most available antibiotics. Some of the gravest of these infections are caused by bacteria carrying genes that confer resistance to a broad class of antibiotics called β-lactams, many of which are treatments of last resort. Now a research team reports that some wastewater treatment plants in China discharge one of these potent resistance genes into the environment (Environ. Sci. Technol. Lett. 2013, DOI: 10.1021/ez400152e). Environmental and public health experts worry that this discharge could promote the spread of resistance.

When Pedro J. J. Alvarez of Rice University and his collaborators detected abundant antibiotic resistance genes in China�s Haihe River several years ago (Environ. Sci. Technol. 2010, DOI: 10.1021/es100233w), they wanted to find out how the genes were reaching the environment. So they decided to examine wastewater treatment plants in the region, because antibiotic resistance genes are widespread in fecal bacteria. The treatment plants cultivate bacteria in the incoming water to break down sewage and industrial wastewater. The water is then disinfected with chlorine and released into local waterways. Farmers sometimes use treated sludge, the solid by-product of the treatment process, as a fertilizer on their fields.

Need to use a bit more chlorine there. This stuff is dangerous as hell. A lot more in the rest of the article.