The Harmful Side Effects On The Environment Essay

By collaborating our work from various resources, we established that antibiotics have harmful side effects on the environment. When animals are administered antibiotics, it kills off other bacteria and allows antibiotic resistant bacteria to survive and multiply. This causes contamination of animal waste, which then comes into contact with water, soil, or air (Food, Farm, Animals, and Drugs 2014). Horizontal gene transfer is also a big concern for the environment. In recent years, there has been an increase in antibiotic resistant bacteria found. The antibiotics that are given to the animals get in contact with their immediate environment, but then get washed away and become in contact with various water sources such as, wastewater plants (Finley, Laarsson, Mcewen, Li, and Gaze 2013). When the antibiotic resistant bacteria becomes in contact with the environment it increases the chances for horizontal gene transfer of the new resistant determinant, which then alters the microbial population causing a change in the dynamic of the ecosystem (Martinez 2009). This can explain how antibiotic resistant genes can become wide spread. If an area has never been in contact with antibiotic resistant bacteria, the environment can still become infected through horizontal gene transfer (Heur, Schmitt, and Smalla 2011). Antibiotics also affect the natural soil bacteria, which causes denitrification in the nitrogen cycle. Having antibiotics impact the nitrogen cycle is a major concern…