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The beast and its Achilles heel:
A novel target to fight multi-resistant pathogenic bacteria
Survey
Among others, one of our goals is to draw attention on the problem with resistant bacteria. In order to do this, two members of our team performed a survey in the city of Göttingen. Of course, they asked questions related to multi-resistant bacteria, which is our topic. Additionally, they asked questions about genetically modified food products in order to get a view on what people know about genetic engineering.
On the one hand, it was alarming that some people have never even heard about the problem with multi-resistant bacteria, on the other hand, it is familiar to some people as they have experienced diseases related to multi-resistant bacteria themselves or through relatives that suffered from infections.
Unfortunately, comments like “I myself have developed resistance against specific antibiotics” or “it is hard to combat them because they are so different” show that the knowledge on this topic was not that great. It does, indeed, imply that they know about some difficulties in fighting resistant bacteria. However, it is important to educate people about what they can do to reduce the growing number of antibiotic resistant bacteria.
Some important points worth knowing are:
- Antibiotics do not work against viruses! Avoid unnecessary prescription of antibiotics
- Complete the entire course of the prescribed antibiotic – do not stop because you are feeling better
- Practice good hygiene and use appropriate infection control procedures
The other part of the survey was about genetically modified (GM) food products.
A food product is GM if a transgenic insert has been introduced. Researchers supporting GM products argue that GM foods are healthier and more abundant while researchers that disapprove GM products fear the consequences. Regarding that the debate has been going on for years, even decades now, and is very comprehensive, it will not be further elucidated at this point.
However, in the survey both views were represented. Some people believe that it is not dangerous and should not be forbidden while others principally prefer organic products that are not genetically modified.
It was noticeable that all people that were included in this survey agreed that GM products should be labeled clearly leaving the choice to the customer.
Furthermore, people also added interesting points like the cost or the hunger issue. This reflects a great advantage of GM foods as they can be grown in larger scale and are more likely to meet the food demand of the growing global population.
