Are we creating UV resistant bacteria?

[kevin]

I stopped in at a fast food joint while on a long drive the other day and noticed a UV light hung outside the restrooms to kill bacteria I guess. The first time I saw this was at a emergency room by the door coming into the emergency room. The light was huge and powerful.

By hanging these lights all over are we creating UV resistant bugs like we have with antibiotics? Are people just too paranoid about germs thinking they have to kill them all off to be "safe"?

 

[This Guy]

This thread begs for someone with Photo shop and skill

I'll leave the intelligent comments to the more serious minded out there

 

[meg]

I dunno about the creating UV resistant bugs thing. I mean, aren't these lights supposed to work the same way sunlight does? Considering sunglight has been around much longer than our manufactured lights ever have, I doubt that we'll create some superbug by using them.

Meg

 

[casebro]

Any unbiased study that shows a positive effect from hanging lights over doorways? They are not gonna kill the germs in my armpits, or in the gunk on the soles of my shoes, or in my sputum, or, or,or...

Will doormen get skin cancer? or will it just skunk their beers?

 

[Timothy]

UV germicidal lights are designed to kill the bacteria in airborne droplets. The effectiveness and safety are critical factors...the shielding in a proper system should conform to ANSI standards for UV exposure. While I'd expect a hospital to be able to properly install and maintain a system for doing so (and thereby halting some very nasty airborne pathogens) to do so for the restroom for a fastfood restaurant seems silly. With food handling, it's the bacteria transferred from feces to hands that's the biggest concern.

I don't know about the effectiveness...my first gut reaction is that a UV light salesman got really aggressive and made a sale to a sucker.

- Timothy

 

[thrombus29]

UV lights have been used for years in meat packing houses to control bacteria in meat aging rooms, I don't know if anyone has caught a superbug off a nice NY strip steak yet.

 

[casebro]

UV lights have been used for years in meat packing houses to control bacteria in meat aging rooms, I don't know if anyone has caught a superbug off a nice NY strip steak yet.

At that point, the bacteria are on the surface of the meat. Probably does do something good, beside tanning the hide. BUT, did anybody catch a superbug off a steak before?

From Timothy: "UV germicidal lights are designed to kill the bacteria in airborne droplets."

So it's good to know that sneezes outside don't spread diseezes, because the UV in sunlight kills the bejeeezes out of the sineezes... does it work for influeezes too? Shouldn't bird flu get killed off if the birds sneeze in the daytime? oooh, wait...it spreads at NIGHT! Hmmm, how many dead Vietnamese bird handlers work the night shift?

Do you think brown chickens will be protected by their coloration, since the white ones will reflect the UV away but the brown ones will absorb it?

CALL the light bulb salesman! I want tanning lamps for all million chickens on my egg farm!

AAand, maybe it not the arthroscopic surgery that fixes things, it's just the light bulb they stick inside of you. White LEDs, what wavelength?

OH MY! anew quack device! An LED on a string- no, wait- an LED with a battery, in pill size. Swallow it and disinfect your belly! And the tan would make you beautiful inside too! New cure for internal yeast infections! Who needs Colonic irrigations anymore! I'm gonna be rich!

 

[Ririon]

Microbes which can handle more radiation will be more successful in an area illuminated with UV light, but since we don't use UV light to treat infections, that is not a big problem. A UV-resistant bacteria is not necessarily more dangerous. Actually, they are probably slightly less dangerous on average. Using some energy to potentially fight radiation in some way makes it slightly less efficient in a low-radiation environment like the human body, where it faces all kinds of other dangers.

 

[Timothy]

From Timothy: "UV germicidal lights are designed to kill the bacteria in airborne droplets."

So it's good to know that sneezes outside don't spread diseezes, because the UV in sunlight kills the bejeeezes out of the sineezes... does it work for influeezes too?

Just because sunlight contains UV light does not mean it contains it in the quantity necessary to kill germs. UV germicidal lights are designed to emit sufficient UV radiation to kill bacteria in airborne droplets.
- Timothy

 

[casebro]

Just because sunlight contains UV light does not mean it contains it in the quantity necessary to kill germs. UV germicidal lights are designed to emit sufficient UV radiation to kill bacteria in airborne droplets.
- Timothy

But Mom always said that sunlight sterilizes the clothes hanging on the line to dry. She also told me that Timmy's mother wore combat boots...

But, can you point to a study that shows actual illness lessens due to lights in doorways? I guess if sick folks outside wait til the doors open to sneeze through the door... but most buildings have positive pressure- air blows out the doors.

 

[kevin]

But, can you point to a study that shows actual illness lessens due to lights in doorways? I guess if sick folks outside wait til the doors open to sneeze through the door... but most buildings have positive pressure- air blows out the doors.

Most restrooms have negative pressure to contain odors. That's why the fan in the restroom.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

3.5 billion years of UV exposure has created plenty of resistant pathogens so I doubt we are going to add much to the problem. Spore forming bacteria like Anthrax are resistant to UV light. It was funny that someone wanted to sell people mail box UV light fixtures during the Anthrax scare a while back since the spores are resistant to UV damage.

However, human exposure to UV light is not so good.

We use UV light to kill pathogens in hospital isolation rooms. You circulate contaminated air past the lights, but you shield people in the room from the lights. That's the only way it does any disease preventing. And there's absolutely no reason to use UV light to kill bacteria unless you have infectious people or other at risk situations. Bathroom air does not need UV light except in areas where the UV light would expose people. Not good! If you had the UV light come on when the bathroom was empty, that might be useful for decontaminating all the places dirty hands go. Kind of pricey when hand washing would work as well if people actually did it.

 

[Soapy Sam]

I recently saw a comment ( and can't recall where) that bactericidal soaps, unlike antibiotics, could not result in the creation of bactericide resistance.

I failed to understand the reasoning behind this. It seems to me that any agent that stresses a population will have a selective effect. Some bacteria will be morw resistant to such soaps. If the less resistant forms are killed off, all that survive are the resistant forms , which then breed in the absence of their erstwhile competitors.

 

[Silly Green Monkey]

UV lights in doorways where living tissue can be exposed? We were always cautioned to never ever use the UV sterilizer when anyone was in the area.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I recently saw a comment ( and can't recall where) that bactericidal soaps, unlike antibiotics, could not result in the creation of bactericide resistance.

I failed to understand the reasoning behind this. It seems to me that any agent that stresses a population will have a selective effect. Some bacteria will be morw resistant to such soaps. If the less resistant forms are killed off, all that survive are the resistant forms , which then breed in the absence of their erstwhile competitors.

It's true there is less resistance developing but it isn't true there is no resistance developing and the danger is when resistance develops it can have cross resistance to unrelated chemicals like an unrelated antibiotic for example.

The difference in disinfectants vs antibiotics is in one case you are killing actively multiplying bacteria. In the other it depends on the amount of food whether the bacteria are going to be actively dividing or not and they are likely to be dividing more slowly. The more divisions, the greater the chance for a resistant gene to emerge.