A Lethal Industrial Farm Fungus is Spreading Among Us

http://www.counterpunch.org/2019/04/26/a-lethal-industrial-farm-fungus-is-spreading-among-us/
Date Written:  2019-04-26
Publisher:  CounterPunch
Year Published:  2019
Resource Type:  Article
Cx Number:  CX23632

Agricultural fungicides are creating strains of drug-resistant fungi.

Abstract: 
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Excerpt:

The agricultural applications help generate drug resistance across multiple human bacterial infections, killing 23,000-100,000 Americans a year and, with an increasing amount of antibiotics applied abroad, 700,000 people worldwide.

Now a fungal species, Candida auris, has developed multidrug resistance and is rapidly spreading across human populations across the globe. The CDC reports 90% of C. auris infections are clocking in resistant to one antifungal drug and 30% to two or more....

With zones of overlapping human and crop resistant cases of Aspergillus fumigatus and the rising specter of a new azole resistant fungus ravaging clinical settings and evolving at lightning speed, one would hope that azole fungicide use would be closely monitored if not just phased out.

The dangers of continuing upon this path of agricultural development are acute.