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Bathers, beware. A trip to the beach could yield more than a damaging sunburn. According to a recent study, all nine sampled beaches in Washington State contained strains of the virulent methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteria—or related methicillin-resistant coagulase-negative Staphylococci—in the sand or water.

The so-called superbug can cause severe infection and is resistant to some antibiotic treatments. It is most closely associated with hospitals, where it was responsible for nearly 9,000 patient deaths in 2005, according to a study in The Journal of the American Medical Association. It has, however, been drawing increased attention in other settings.

"We were interested in answering where in the community, outside the health care system, could the average American pick this up," Marilyn Roberts, a professor of environmental and occupational health sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle and the study leader, told Bloomberg News.

Swimmers at subtropical beaches run about a 37 percent chance of being exposed to staph bacteria, according to research from the University of Miami, presented earlier this year at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual conference in Chicago. That team found, however, that only 3 percent of the strains they collected were of the antibiotic-resistant variety.

The University of Washington study, presented at the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy in San Francisco on Saturday, was a cursory survey, which used small sample sizes and didn't investigate how the bug might be getting to the beaches. "The findings suggest that there's probably a lot more out there than what we were able to detect," Roberts told Bloomberg.

The MRSA strains that the researchers found appeared to be of the hospital-acquired variety, rather than the community-acquired one, raising questions about how they ended up at the beaches—none of which were close to a hospital. "Where all these organisms are coming from and how they are getting seeded, we don't know," Roberts told the Los Angeles Times.

Roberts and her colleagues don't recommend skipping the beach altogether (pools have also been found to be reservoirs of staph). But they do note that open wounds should be well covered, and sand should be washed off the body. Researchers from the University of Miami study note that those who have compromised immune systems are at a greater risk.

To avoid staph infections of any kind, bathers should shower before and after hitting the beach, recommends Paul Fey, an associate professor at the University of Nebraska Medical Center and associate director of the Clinical Microbiology Laboratory in Omaha, who wasn't involved with the research. People can spread staph to other swimmers but also to other parts of their own bodies. Staphylococcus epidemidis resides on the skin and rarely causes infection, but about 30 to 35 percent of people, he says, carry the aureus variety in mucus membranes and elsewhere on the body. "We're colonized," he says.

Image courtesy of mikebaird via Flickr

7 Comments

1. 1. scientific earthling 08:01 PM 9/14/09

   Anti-bacterial cleaning aids have established themselves in our homes now. Go buy the latest chemical agent to kill off 99.9% of all the bacteria on your home surfaces.
   The 0.1% that remain are the resistant ones and go on to multiply. Help bacteria evolve into anti-bacterial resistant strains. At the same time allow these very small doses (in terms of dose sizes as a percentage of mass) to very slowly induce new ailments into your children.

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2. 2. jh443 12:37 PM 9/15/09

   I'd normally agree with you S.E., as I too am concerned that these cleaning aids will come back and bite us on the rump.
   
   However, this isn't the case here. MRSA and VRSA (not mentioned here) are the result of incomplete usage of prescription antibiotics. They became a problem for the same reason we now have resistant forms of TB - people stop taking the medication when they feel better, which often is too soon.
   

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3. 3. hellblade 08:21 PM 9/15/09

   in my entire life i used antibiotics exactly once. yet now i am in the position of grave concern because of ignorant people who fell for advertisement about obsessive cleanliness and others who chug down antibiotics whenever they have a running nose. that's just great.

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4. 4. scientific earthling in reply to jh443 08:24 PM 9/17/09

   jh443:
   I am aware that people take antibiotics till they start to feel well and then stop, this leaves the more resistant ones to breed, and we got resistant strains.
   
   We don't learn do we? I am pointing out the next possible problem that no one is mentioning.

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5. 5. Human52 04:22 PM 9/23/09

   More and more people are just basically filthy. They bring their habits to the beaches, and dont care. The ease of travel allows many people to bring their local strains of bacteria, and it begins to thrive in the environment.
   Run-off from beach cities has increased levels of filth and bacteria that is not adressed properly. It has not been until the invasion of middle-eastern people that this has begun. Never had this kind of epidemic before, why is it occuring now? Check the demographics in all the coastal cities, you will see a pattern.

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6. 6. tinacarcione 07:22 PM 9/16/10

   MRSA is a particularly dangerous strain of bacteria and can prove to be a very fatal staph infection. http://www.stopmrsanow.org is also a great resource on how to prevent the spread of MRSA

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7. 7. MMoore 02:11 PM 5/23/12

   Antibiotic resistance in MRSA (and other bacteria) has it's fingers in many areas, not just one. You'll find Staph and MRSA anywhere people hang out, because it's a bacteria found on people.
   
   What is contributing to antibiotic resistance?
   1) Antibiotic compliance (if you stop your antibiotics too early, you leave antibiotic resistant bacteria behind to repopulate)
   2) Abuse of antibiotics through prescriptions for colds and flu (for which they are ineffective - thus you are exposing bacteria to them needlessly)
   3) Use of antibacterial soaps has been shown to cause antibiotic resistance
   4) Abuse of antibiotics through feeding to livestock (80% of antibiotics used in the USA go to livestock - to fatten them up and prevent infection in crowded conditions). This puts great pressure on the flora of the livestock. Feedlot antibiotics end up in the soil, and there are soil bacteria that now eat antibiotics.
   5) Bacteria can transfer "resistance" information to other bacteria (say soil bacteria to Staph or E. coli bacteria)
   6) Doctors not testing each infections for what antibiotics work or don't work
   7) By hospitals not monitoring rates of antibiotic resistant infections (hospitals that do and have restrictions on their use and more education on their use have lowered their rates of antibiotic resistant infections).
   
   Countries which monitor their antibiotic resistant infection rates, use less antibiotics and have low antibiotic use in livestock have some of the lowest rates or MRSA in the world.
   
   It's a complex issue that needs to be addressed in multiple areas. The good news is, when these types of policies are instituted, bacterial resistance decreases, so we can make a difference.
   
   We need bacteria to survive as they outnumber our own human cells by 10:1. We've just scratched the surface on understanding how bacteria and other microorganisms affect our overall health. For optimal health, it's best to think about how to best protect and nourish your own bacteria before reaching for more antibiotics.
   
   Michelle Moore
   Author and Microbiologist
   Staph and MRSA Education, Awareness and Solutions: http://www.staph-infection-resources.com
   

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