Glyphosate drives antimicrobial resistance

Considering that glyphosate was officially registered by Monsanto itself some years ago as an antibiotic, it appears to us that the multi-million tons of glyphosate applied yearly in agriculture, nearly a billion tons annually, would participate of rising Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR), and this could be seen notably in low middle income countries (LMIC) where there be low, sub-optimal use of antibiotics (ABs).

Recently, an article published in the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy caughted our attention. The article’s abstract states: ” We provide evidence that glyphosate (a herbicide but also an antibiotic drug) could be a possible driver of antibiotic resistance in countries where this herbicide is widely used because of modification of the microbial environment. Emergence of resistance in bacteria and fungi is correlated with glyphosate use in the world over the last 40 years.”