{"id":30226,"date":"2021-11-23T00:01:12","date_gmt":"2021-11-23T04:01:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/?p=30226"},"modified":"2021-11-23T22:46:49","modified_gmt":"2021-11-24T02:46:49","slug":"fungal-resistance-to-antimicrobial-pesticides-leads-to-deadly-infection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/2021\/11\/fungal-resistance-to-antimicrobial-pesticides-leads-to-deadly-infection\/","title":{"rendered":"Fungal Resistance to Antimicrobial Pesticides Leads to Deadly Infection"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

(Beyond Pesticides<\/em>, November 23, 2021) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced, in mid-October, a revision of its guidance<\/a> on the evaluation of antimicrobial pesticides used against\u00a0Candida auris<\/em>\u00a0<\/a>(C. auris<\/em>). This pathogen is a type of fungus (a yeast) that can cause serious infection, and can spread readily among patients and staff in hospitals and other congregate healthcare settings (such as nursing homes). C. auris<\/em>\u00a0has developed resistance<\/a> to what used to be the therapeutic impacts of major antifungal medications. (Resistance<\/a> is a major and growing problem in healthcare and in agriculture, with the latter exacerbating the former<\/a>.) Another moving part in this unholy development of \u201cchemical compounds no longer working\u201d is EPA\u2019s failure to assess the efficacy of any pesticides that are not used for public health purposes; for example, EPA evaluates the efficacy of only<\/a> those antimicrobial compounds whose use patterns classify them as human-health-related. This failure to evaluate efficacy of all other pesticide products leaves many people in the dark about whether what they may be using actually works \u2014 never mind the potential risks associated with that use.<\/p>\r\n

The antifungal medications that have been used for many years to treat Candida<\/em> infections often no longer work for\u00a0C. auris<\/em>; some infections have shown resistance to all three types of antifungals available as treatments. Beyond Pesticides wrote, in 2019: \u201cEchoing the\u00a0development of resistance in bacteria<\/a>, there have lately been resistant fungi showing up in hospitals and labs, adding to the already considerable worry in the medical community about how to treat people who contract infections caused by resistant pathogens. Matthew Fisher, Ph.D, a professor of fungal epidemiology at Imperial College London, has said,<\/a>\u00a0\u2018It\u2019s an enormous problem. We depend on being able to treat those patients with antifungals.\u2019 Fungi, just like other organisms, adaptively exploit genetic mutations to defend against what would kill them \u2014 in this case, antifungal medications.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

The new guidance from EPA<\/a> on C. auris<\/em> offers recommendations for laboratory methods on producing and storing cultures of the drug-resistant\u00a0pathogen, and evaluating the effectiveness of antimicrobial products intended to treat surfaces contaminated with it. To be clear, it is not all isolates (strains) of C. auris<\/em> that have developed drug resistance \u2014 yet. Back in 2017, in consultation with The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), EPA issued interim guidance for evaluating the efficacy of disinfectants used in hospitals against C. auris<\/em>. Later on, lab data were generated (based on CDC\u2019s tracking of clinical cases of multi\u2013drug resistant C. auris<\/em> isolates in the U.S.) as a basis for comparing the relative resistance of various isolates of C. auris<\/em> to antimicrobial disinfectants.<\/p>\r\n

The updated EPA guidance directs that manufacturers of any new products seeking registration should test for efficacy using a more-relevant strain of C. auris<\/em>. Beyond Pesticides notes again the serious flaw in EPA\u2019s practice<\/a>: the agency leaves to the chemical industry<\/em> the responsibility for testing its products for safety (and in this case, efficacy), and submitting related data as part of the registration application process. EPA\u2019s Office of Pesticide Programs<\/a> relies on industry-generated data to register and regulate pesticide products whose uses result in widespread public exposure.<\/p>\r\n

Candida auris<\/em> can be deadly; indeed, more than one in three patients with a serious C. auris<\/em> infection of the blood, heart, or brain die from it, and nearly half of those who contract the infection die<\/a> within 90 days. Immunocompromised people and infants are at high risk of lethality from these infections. C. auris<\/em> is difficult to eradicate in patient surrounds, so healthcare settings are understandably concerned not only about the increasing inefficacy of antifungal medications, but also, about how to control the spread of C. auris<\/em> once it has appeared in a patient and facility.<\/p>\r\n

As recent research has noted<\/a>, \u201cUnfortunately, there are very few data available on the effectiveness of disinfectants against\u00a0C. auris<\/em>. Chlorine-based products appear to be the most effective for environmental surface disinfection. Other disinfectants, although less effective than chlorine-based products, may have a role as adjunctive disinfectants. A cleaning protocol will also need to be established as the use of disinfectants alone may not be sufficient for maximal decontamination of patient care areas. Furthermore, there are fewer data on the effectiveness of antiseptics against\u00a0C. auris<\/em>\u00a0for patient decolonization and hand hygiene for healthcare personnel.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

As Beyond Pesticides wrote<\/a> in its coverage of this growing problem, \u201cOne of the factors making this fungus so deadly is that it has developed resistance to existing antifungal medicines, with\u00a090% of infections resistant to one drug, and 30% to two or more<\/a>. As is true for resistant bacteria,\u00a0culprits in\u00a0C. auris<\/em>\u2019s development of resistance<\/a>\u00a0may be the overuse of antifungal medications in healthcare and overreliance on fungicides in agriculture.\u201d The CDC calls C. auris<\/em> \u201can emerging fungal pathogen,\u201d with the incidence of infection having increased rapidly across many countries since it was first recognized in 2009 in Japan.<\/p>\r\n

Beyond Pesticides has previously called attention to the role of EPA in the issue of inefficacy of pesticide compounds (which include fungicides, antimicrobials, insecticides, herbicides, rodenticides, parasiticides, and others<\/a>). The agency has a decades-long poor track record on this front. Back in 1990, the EPA Office of the GAO (U.S. Government Accountability Office) issued recommendations, based on its review of EPA\u2019s regulation of disinfectants, in a document titled \u201cDisinfectants: EPA Lacks Assurance They Work.\u201d<\/a> Since then, EPA has begun to evaluate \u2014 sometimes \u2014 the efficacy of disinfectants and antimicrobial compounds<\/a> through its Antimicrobial Performance Evaluation Program<\/a>. Yet, even here, the scope of its review is narrow because EPA classifies disinfectants into three categories \u2014 hospital disinfectants, broad-spectrum (general) disinfectants, and limited disinfectants \u2014 and requires only that hospital disinfectants must have demonstrated efficacy against only two<\/em> qualifying bacteria \u2014 Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus.<\/em><\/p>\r\n

As for all the other pesticide compounds in use in a variety of settings, EPA essentially neither requests nor requires efficacy data in its registration of any that are used for non\u2013public health purposes. (In addition, although required by law to weigh pesticide risks and benefits, EPA rarely has the data to make that determination). Thus, for nearly all pesticides used in agriculture, around homes and buildings, and on landscapes, decisions about whether a compound even works <\/em>on the target pest or pathogen \u2014 and therefore, whether the risks inherent in its use can be deemed \u201cworth it\u201d \u2014 are left to consumers, farmers, and healthcare organizations to figure out. This is, obviously, a problem.<\/p>\r\n

EPA\u2019s position on this is that the marketplace (somehow) determines efficacy. Given that most healthcare professionals, farmers, and consumers do not have at hand the information with which to make such a decision, nor the ability to do laboratory efficacy evaluations, they are left to make decisions without benefit of full information about a pesticide product. This is especially nonsensical because resistance to pesticides builds over relatively short periods of time, meaning that without benefit of accurate, independent evaluation of efficacy, people are applying toxic compounds that may not even \u201cwork.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

Farmers may discover product inefficacy when they see infestations of weeds or insects among their crops \u2014 because the pests are no longer controlled by the herbicides or insecticides the farm has been purchasing and using, often for some years. [This is the resistance issue about which Beyond Pesticides has written often \u2014 see here<\/a>, here<\/a>, and here<\/a>.] If a conventionally operated, chemical-intensive farm enterprise, which is typically very dependent on pesticides for pest control, discovers after<\/em> a crop loss that a pesticide did not work, the results can be economically devastating.<\/p>\r\n

Further, EPA\u2019s implicit contention that the marketplace can be the arbiter of efficacy is implausible, at best. How can \u201cthe marketplace\u201d determine relative benefits (based on efficacy and risks) \u2014 and thus, guide farmers\u2019 and consumers\u2019 and health professionals\u2019 decisions \u2014 when lack of efficacy is discovered after the fact? That is some serious \u201ccart before the horse\u201d logic.<\/p>\r\n

This lack of information on efficacy can have dire consequences that could be avoided if EPA were to conduct efficacy reviews to determine whether pesticides work over time. In agriculture, in part because the agrichemical industry has successfully indoctrinated producers into the \u201cchemical controls\u201d approach, EPA\u2019s failure to do such reviews often results, downstream, in farmers seeking (very often granted) \u201cemergency exemptions\u201d to use unregistered pesticides (which may be in the registration pipeline), or those that are intended for other purposes.<\/p>\r\n

There is often a \u201cthrow whatever you have at it\u201d attitude in these \u201cemergency\u201d situations \u2014 which Beyond Pesticides regards as the \u201cchickens of chemical control coming inevitably home to roost.\u201d Agrichemical industry response to the development of resistance has largely been to promote use of yet another pesticide or herbicide for the problem, or to \u201cdouble down\u201d with paired pesticide compounds, or to roll out yet another herbicide-plus-GE-seed combination to try to stave off the pest. (This has been particularly true in the case of developing resistance to glyphosate-based herbicides<\/a>.) But this entropic \u201cresistance and response\u201d dynamic is a unidirectional progression along an increasingly poisonous and unsustainable path.<\/p>\r\n

Fraught as it is with negative impacts on human and environmental health, including the mounting resistance issues, chemically intensive agriculture should be understood as a sign of the ineffectiveness of conventional, chemical approaches to pest control. Adoption of\u00a0organic agricultural practices<\/a> can diminish the resistance problem, potentially helping to preserve important antibiotic and antifungal medicines for treatment of human infection. But EPA abdicates its responsibility \u201cto protect human health and the environment\u201d when it fails to address the issue of efficacy of pesticide products, causing downstream health, economic, and environmental harms. Beyond Pesticides recommends that EPA Administrator Michael Regan and officials in the Office of Pesticide Programs address this wide gap in agency function.<\/p>\r\n

Sources: https:\/\/www.epa.gov\/pesticides\/epa-revises-guidance-ensure-effectiveness-antimicrobial-pesticides-against-candida-auris<\/a> and https:\/\/www.jdsupra.com\/legalnews\/epa-announces-revisions-to-guidance-to-5506501\/<\/a><\/p>\r\n

All unattributed positions and opinions in this piece are those of Beyond Pesticides.<\/em><\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Beyond Pesticides, November 23, 2021) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced, in mid-October, a revision of its guidance on the evaluation of antimicrobial pesticides used against\u00a0Candida auris\u00a0(C. auris). This pathogen is a type of fungus (a yeast) that can cause serious infection, and can spread readily among patients and staff in hospitals and other congregate healthcare settings (such as nursing homes). C. auris\u00a0has developed resistance to what used to be the therapeutic impacts of major antifungal medications. (Resistance is a major and growing problem in healthcare and in agriculture, with the latter exacerbating the former.) Another moving part in this unholy development of \u201cchemical compounds no longer working\u201d is EPA\u2019s failure to assess the efficacy of any pesticides that are not used for public health purposes; for example, EPA evaluates the efficacy of only those antimicrobial compounds whose use patterns classify them as human-health-related. This failure to evaluate efficacy of all other pesticide products leaves many people in the dark about whether what they may be using actually works \u2014 never mind the potential risks associated with that use. The antifungal medications that have been used for many years to treat Candida infections often no longer work for\u00a0C. auris; […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30271,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[155,367,439,354,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-antibacterial","category-antibiotic-resistance","category-antimicrobial","category-environmental-protection-agency-epa","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nFungal Resistance to Antimicrobial Pesticides Leads to Deadly Infection - Beyond Pesticides Daily News Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/2021\/11\/fungal-resistance-to-antimicrobial-pesticides-leads-to-deadly-infection\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Fungal Resistance to Antimicrobial Pesticides Leads to Deadly Infection - Beyond Pesticides Daily News Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"(Beyond Pesticides, November 23, 2021) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced, in mid-October, a revision of its guidance on the evaluation of antimicrobial pesticides used against\u00a0Candida auris\u00a0(C. auris). This pathogen is a type of fungus (a yeast) that can cause serious infection, and can spread readily among patients and staff in hospitals and other congregate healthcare settings (such as nursing homes). C. auris\u00a0has developed resistance to what used to be the therapeutic impacts of major antifungal medications. (Resistance is a major and growing problem in healthcare and in agriculture, with the latter exacerbating the former.) Another moving part in this unholy development of \u201cchemical compounds no longer working\u201d is EPA\u2019s failure to assess the efficacy of any pesticides that are not used for public health purposes; for example, EPA evaluates the efficacy of only those antimicrobial compounds whose use patterns classify them as human-health-related. This failure to evaluate efficacy of all other pesticide products leaves many people in the dark about whether what they may be using actually works \u2014 never mind the potential risks associated with that use. 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This pathogen is a type of fungus (a yeast) that can cause serious infection, and can spread readily among patients and staff in hospitals and other congregate healthcare settings (such as nursing homes). C. auris\u00a0has developed resistance to what used to be the therapeutic impacts of major antifungal medications. (Resistance is a major and growing problem in healthcare and in agriculture, with the latter exacerbating the former.) Another moving part in this unholy development of \u201cchemical compounds no longer working\u201d is EPA\u2019s failure to assess the efficacy of any pesticides that are not used for public health purposes; for example, EPA evaluates the efficacy of only those antimicrobial compounds whose use patterns classify them as human-health-related. This failure to evaluate efficacy of all other pesticide products leaves many people in the dark about whether what they may be using actually works \u2014 never mind the potential risks associated with that use. The antifungal medications that have been used for many years to treat Candida infections often no longer work for\u00a0C. auris; […]","og_url":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/2021\/11\/fungal-resistance-to-antimicrobial-pesticides-leads-to-deadly-infection\/","og_site_name":"Beyond Pesticides Daily News Blog","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/beyondpesticides","article_author":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/beyondpesticides\/","article_published_time":"2021-11-23T04:01:12+00:00","article_modified_time":"2021-11-24T02:46:49+00:00","og_image":[{"width":640,"height":320,"url":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/DN-fungal-resistance.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Beyond Pesticides","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@ByondPesticides","twitter_site":"@ByondPesticides","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Beyond Pesticides","Est. reading time":"8 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/2021\/11\/fungal-resistance-to-antimicrobial-pesticides-leads-to-deadly-infection\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/2021\/11\/fungal-resistance-to-antimicrobial-pesticides-leads-to-deadly-infection\/"},"author":{"name":"Beyond Pesticides","@id":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/#\/schema\/person\/1b5c0a0981b549cc5b628770073031f4"},"headline":"Fungal Resistance to Antimicrobial Pesticides Leads to Deadly Infection","datePublished":"2021-11-23T04:01:12+00:00","dateModified":"2021-11-24T02:46:49+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/2021\/11\/fungal-resistance-to-antimicrobial-pesticides-leads-to-deadly-infection\/"},"wordCount":1655,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/2021\/11\/fungal-resistance-to-antimicrobial-pesticides-leads-to-deadly-infection\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/DN-fungal-resistance.jpg","articleSection":["Antibacterial","Antibiotic Resistance","Antimicrobial","Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/2021\/11\/fungal-resistance-to-antimicrobial-pesticides-leads-to-deadly-infection\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/2021\/11\/fungal-resistance-to-antimicrobial-pesticides-leads-to-deadly-infection\/","url":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/2021\/11\/fungal-resistance-to-antimicrobial-pesticides-leads-to-deadly-infection\/","name":"Fungal Resistance to Antimicrobial Pesticides Leads to Deadly Infection - 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