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by verisimilitude 935 days ago
These infections are a huge problem. My neighbor missed 2 _years_ of college recovering from a C. diff infection. And you are correct: fecal transplant is the way, for now.

Per the article, these bleach (sodium hypochlorite) resistant spores are a HUGE problem. At my office, we clean surfaces with quaternary ammonium compounds, and those are supposed to be superior against spores. But still, if the required contact times to disinfect surfaces keep increasing in healthcare settings, we are going to have a major issue where only the most resistant spore-forming bacterial strains survive (basically, we'll be selecting for the strongest... you know, evolution).

1 comments

> basically, we'll be selecting for the strongest... you know, evolution

Fortunately TANSTAAFL[0] applies to evolution as well, right? Specific adaptations come with increased metabolic cost, so e.g. strongly bleach-resistant bacteria should eventually start losing resistance to other antimicrobials/antiseptics. Right?

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[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_such_thing_as_a_free_lunch

>TANSTAAFL

Man. Way to rustle the ol' memory tree.

I think the first time I saw this in print was in Programming Perl back in the mid-1990's.