The rise of the superbugs has been blamed on the overuse of antibiotics—but there could be another culprit: the weedkillers we use on our gardens and farms.
Glyphosate, one of the world’s most popular herbicides once found in products such as Round Up, could be fuelling the rise of the antibiotic-resistant superbugs, a new study has found.
Researchers at the Institute of Medical Microbiology and Parasitology in Buenos Aires tested 68 bacterial strains collected from sediment in a protected nature reserve; although herbicides have never been used in the reserve, glyphosate is used on farmland nearby.
The samples were resistant to 16 antibiotics, and most were even resistant to carbapenems, often used as ‘last resort’ antibiotics.
Glyphosate is not often used in domestic weedkillers, and some countries such as France, Belgium, and the Netherlands have banned it. It’s still commonly used in agricultural pesticides, however.
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