A wide range of marine animals also contains microbes that are resistant to antibiotics

An unprecedented survey of seabirds, marine mammals, and sharks on the U.S. East Coast has revealed that marine wildlife contains a wide variety of disease-causing microbes—including many that have developed resistance to antibiotics and several that can be transmitted to humans.

The newly published study provides no evidence that the widespread presence of these disease agents in marine animals is affecting the health of people. But it raises several provocative questions:

• Are more marine animals acquiring disease-causing microbes in coastal waters contaminated by human, agricultural, and medical waste?
• Can marine life act as carriers for infectious diseases, spreading pathogens through the oceans?
• Can marine animals ingesting antibiotics in medical waste, serve as incubators to maintain, multiply, and spread antibiotic resistance genes through marine and coastal ecosystems?

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“It’s really amazing what you find once you start looking,” Bogomolni said. “We’ve learned that it’s not just marine mammals, it’s not just birds, and it’s not just one geographic area that’s affected. You cannot look at a system and just look at one species or one group. Everything is connected.”

Research source: http://www.int-res.com/articles/dao_oa/d081p013.pdf