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Modern Poisons pp 164–173Cite as

Chemical Resistance

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Abstract

Modern toxicology has taken the field in directions far beyond what Paracelsus could have ever imagined. Epigenetics challenges the idea that direct exposure is needed to cause harm, while biologic molecules such as prions show that toxicity cannot always be described by the classic dose–response relationship. How can the dose of a chemical be ascertained if the chemical is self-replicating? Another phenomenon on the fringe of toxicology involves the biological response to chemical toxicity, or resistance. Our widespread use of chemicals to combat pests has, somewhat paradoxically, provoked those pests to develop resistance. When taken to its endpoint, the development of resistance itself can be considered as a self-replicating “pollutant.” But before that discussion, it may be instructive to consider how resistant populations of pest organisms develop.

If there’s one thing the history of evolution has taught us it’s that life will not be contained. Life breaks free, it expands to new territories, and crashes through barriers painfully maybe even dangerously, but, uh, well, there it is.

— Michael Crichton, from the screenplay for the movie Jurassic Park

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Notes

  1. 1.

    * The term fitness, as used by geneticists, denotes the ability of an organism to survive and, more importantly, to reproduce.

  2. 2.

    * Fleming had gone on vacation to his country house, and upon his return to the laboratory he was cleaning petri plates that had become contaminated with fungi while he was away. A former laboratory assistant stopped by to talk with him, and he slowed down his normally brisk routine of disinfecting the plates for reuse. Fleming then noticed that some of the fungi that had colonized the plates had also inhibited the growth of the bacteria he had earlier inoculated onto them.

  3. 3.

    * This does not mean to imply that the antibiotics themselves cannot be environmental pollutants. Many antibiotics, such as penicillin, arise from naturally occurring compounds and biodegrade in the environment relatively quickly. Furthermore, given the lack of self-replication, their concentration in the environment is low and their capacity to migrate long distances, particularly without the capacity to self-replicate, is certainly less than that for a self-replicating plasmid.

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  1. Alan S. Kolok
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© 2016 Alan Kolok

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Kolok, A.S. (2016). Chemical Resistance. In: Modern Poisons. Island Press, Washington, DC. https://doi.org/10.5822/978-1-61091-609-7_20

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