[friendly]

"Is this a spontaneous genetic evolution by strep bacteria or the result of genetic engineering?"

Answer: Spontaneous evolution combined with industrial overuse of antibiotics at Western cattle feedlots, vast North Carolina hog farms, and those Delmarva Penisula poultry factories where the chickens never touch the ground during their entire lives.

Also, bacteria have an amazing ability to share new mutations by exchanging genetic materials, even between utterly alien species. Thus, resistance to an antibiotic can rapidly be transmitted to many different species.

Patent theft by government agencies (especially Canada and socialized Europe) have been drying up the research so that we are facing a critical loss of next generation antibiotics when the current armamentarium eventually fails (see the current NY Times).

IMHO Prediction? A major deadly world wide bacterial epidemic in the next 10 years, to make AIDS look like a piece of cake.

[Jeff Chandler]

IMHO Prediction? A major deadly world wide bacterial epidemic in the next 10 years, to make AIDS look like a piece of cake

Well, aren't you the Suzy Sunshine!

[scholar]

Spontaneous evolution combined with industrial overuse of antibiotics at Western cattle feedlots, ...

Let's not forget the injudicious prescription of antibiotics by physicians when there is no need for an antibiotic, e.g. viral infections. Infectious disease physicians have been warning against this practice for at least 30 yrs. that I know of, yet the doctors keep handing out the prescriptions to keep the patient happy.

[scholar]

IMHO Prediction? A major deadly world wide bacterial epidemic in the next 10 years, ... Whether it's 10 years or 20 years, there is no doubt in my mind it's going to happen.

[The Westerner]

"Patent theft by government agencies (especially Canada and socialized Europe) have been drying up the research so that we are facing a critical loss of next generation antibiotics when the current armamentarium eventually fails (see the current NY Times)."

Along the same lines, if prescription drugs for Medicare patients becomes law, it will have the unintended consequence of lowering the amount of money private drug companies can put into research. Not to mention the frivolous lawsuits over drugs like phen-fen which came with plenty of warnings at the time. Didn't the drug companies stop making childhood vaccines for the same reason? Not only will miracle drugs stop appearing on the market, chronic shortages will be the norm. Americans will reap what they sow.

[oldvike]

Your theory only holds true if the farmers you talk about are specifically giving their animals erythromycin. Otherwise, you're wrong. More than likely, the mutations are a result of over-prescribing by physicians.

[not-an-ostrich]

I've also read articles and seen a couple of 20/20 episodes indicating a direct link between staph infections and OCD. Lord help us if we are creating new generations with a higher number of obsessive-compulsive humans.

[Montfort]

You mention all teh antibiotic use among famr animals, but what about teh vast abuse of antibiotics by humans. When you take antibiotics every time your nose runs, you will tend to give the bacteria in your body a chance to gain immunity to antibiotics. Same thing probably happens when some idiot stops taking the course of antibiotics just because he starts to feel better.

[VOA]

Patent theft by government agencies (especially Canada and socialized Europe) have been
drying up the research so that we are facing a critical loss of next generation
antibiotics when the current armamentarium eventually fails (see the current NY Times).

IIRC, we can also thank a lot of the "workers paradise" countries like the USSR
for rampant over-use/misuse of antibiotics in helping this crisis along.

[Pistias]

A major deadly world wide bacterial epidemic in the next 10 years

Not a naturally-occuring one, I think, but I agree.

Bacteria also (not often, but sometimes) transmit genetic material via being infected with viruses that lay dormant until activated by retranscription of the RNA and subsequent viral takeover, which infects new bacteria. Very versatile little buggers.