A report that Beijing’s already notorious smog contained bacteria with antibiotic-resistant genes spread through the city last week like pathogens in a pandemic disaster movie.
“Drug-resistant bacteria make people very afraid,” the Beijing Evening News said in an article reposted by the Xinhua news agency after a study by Swedish researchers drew interest during yet another flare-up of hazardous smog.
The study, published in October in the journal Microbiome found antibiotic-resistant genetic material in the smog, but no evidence of live bacteria capable of infecting anyone.
That did not make residents of Beijing feel much better, though.
The actress Zhang Ziyi (章子怡) perhaps best summed up the feelings among many of Beijing’s 22 million residents by writing on a Chinese microblogging site yesterday that the smog made her want to pick up her 11-month-old daughter and fly away.
Zhang said that the smog “made it easier to get sick.”
By Monday, most Chinese news reports speculating about the threat had been taken offline, replaced by articles quoting an unidentified expert from the Beijing Department of Health advising that there was nothing to worry about.
However, to cynical Chinese, accustomed to chronic smog and other health hazards, including melamine in baby milk powder, the use of recycled oil in restaurants and clenbuterol-fed pigs, the censorship and rebuttals merely signaled that there was, perhaps, something to worry about.
“Speechless!” and “Run, here comes an expert!” were two typical comments circulating online, now deleted.
“Hurry and develop a face mask that keeps out harmful bacteria and superbugs,” a user identified as Hengkong chushi wrote in response to an article on Tencent titled: “Officials respond to Beijing’s antibiotic-resistant smog superbugs: No harm to humans.”
“Don’t just say ‘no harm,” another commenter named Sun Rain wrote. “Hurry up and develop new laws and new drugs to fend off a major peril that could develop.”
Though fears of airborne bacteria were unfounded, there is a growing health problem: Antibiotic resistance.
Antibiotics are heavily overprescribed in China, doctors and researchers say.
The study said “very little if anything about risks for acquiring an infection from breathing urban air,” Joakim Larsson, one of the authors of the study, a professor of environmental pharmacology at the University of Gothenburg’s Sahlgrenska Academy and director of its Center for Antibiotic Resistance Research, wrote in an e-mail responding to a request for comment.
In the report, the researchers studied different locations around the world for antibiotic-resistant genes, including the human gut, the skin, wastewater, soil, pharmaceutically polluted sites, and, in an apparent innovation, Beijing smog.
In what they described as “a limited set of deeply sequenced air samples from a Beijing smog event,” they identified about 64 types of antibiotic-resistant genes, making Beijing smog one of two environments with “the largest relative abundance and/or diversity” of antibiotic-resistant genes, including genes with resistance to last-resort antibiotics. The other, already known, is environments polluted by pharmaceutical factories.
“We have studied DNA from bacteria in the air and found a large variety of genes that can make bacteria resistant to antibiotics, including some of the most powerful antibiotics we have,” Larsson wrote in the e-mail. “This was a surprising finding to us, and we think it warrants further studies.”
Others appeared to agree.
“This is important work that may provide insights into the dissemination of antibiotic resistance not only in Beijing, but in other cities as well,” W. Lipkin, director of the Center for Infection and Immunity at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, wrote in an e-mail.
“It’s not clear that bacteria in smog are a health threat,” Lipkin wrote, noting that smog may be the more likely cause of health problems.
“What is clear is that the air isn’t clear. Pollution results in damage to airways that increases susceptibility to a wide range of viruses as well as bacteria,” he wrote.
“One question not addressed is whether smog stabilizes bacteria in a way that normal air does not,” he added. “Bacteria probably don’t replicate in the air. More likely that they settle somewhere and do, exchanging genetic material in liquid or on surfaces.”
State news outlets are dispensing health advice: To minimize illness during smog attacks, get enough sleep, eat foods that help you expectorate, flush out your nose with salt water and wash your hands.
Heavy smog was predicted again in Beijing this weekend.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
‘DELUSIONAL’: Targeting the families of Hamas’ leaders would not push the group to change its position or to give up its demands for Palestinians, Ismail Haniyeh said Israeli aircraft on Wednesday killed three sons of Hamas’ top political leader in the Gaza Strip, striking high-stakes targets at a time when Israel is holding delicate ceasefire negotiations with the militant group. Hamas said four of the leader’s grandchildren were also killed. Ismail Haniyeh’s sons are among the highest-profile figures to be killed in the war so far. Israel said they were Hamas operatives, and Haniyeh accused Israel of acting in “the spirit of revenge and murder.” The deaths threatened to strain the internationally mediated ceasefire talks, which appeared to gain steam in recent days even as the sides remain far
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of