E-Coli Bacteria Can Transfer Antibiotic Resistance To Other Bacteria

"Colistin is the antibiotic that doctors use as a last resort to wipe out dangerous bacteria."

"'It's really been kept as the last drug in the locker when all else has failed,' says Dr. Jim Spencer, a senior lecturer in microbiology at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom."

"But now Spencer reports that E. coli bacteria, which can cause kidney failure as well as urinary tract and other infections, have changed. In an article published in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases, Spencer and his co-authors tell how researchers in China have found that the bacteria not only are increasingly resistant to colistin, but have developed a mechanism to transfer resistance to neighboringbacteria. And those bacteria don't even have to be the same strain as those that originally developed the resistance. So bacteria that cause other health problems could be affected."