Antibiotic-Resistant E Coli Reaches The US For The First Time (reuters.com)

New submitter maharvey writes: A woman in Pennsylvania has contracted a strain of E Coli that is unaffected by all known legal antibiotics, including the antibiotics of last resort. We have had bacteria that were resistant, but this is the first bacteria that is completely immune. Such bacteria were known in China, but since the woman has not traveled recently it means she contracted it in the wild in the USA. This is a major step toward the terrifying post-antibiotic world.

Comments

the chickens.

[Gravis Zero]

they've come home to roost.

Re:the chickens.

[Maxo-Texas]

Most likely case would be 2 to 5% deaths directly followed by knock on deaths from disruption.

And if it gets serious, it's very likely something will be found to kill it. With modern genetic knowledge, it's really a question of allocation of resources to antibiotic research. Right now, penis and hair pills are more profitable.

Besides, it's already too late to reduce the population. We past that pole about 20 years ago. We are well underway in an overshoot scenario that's going to hit anyone under 50.

Re:the chickens.

[Opportunist]

Not wanting to piss on your parade (aside of telling you that Austria-Hungary hasn't been a thing for about 100 years, similar to your attitude), but you are aware that one of the first groups to go are the anti-vaxers, right?

Not that I'd complain about that last part.

Re:the chickens.

[silentcoder]

That was a metric ruler you used, you gained 40mm... and the pills had nothing to do with it, you just got a boner from rubbing a ruler on your genitals... but well done on 41mm.

Re:the chickens.

[Maxo-Texas]

Seriously.... you can add about 15% to your penis length thru jelqing. I did about a decade ago. Increased thickness by about 1/4" as well via horse exercises. And it's free. No pills. Basically body manipulation over long periods of time. Took me about 2 years to get to a plateau.

Re:the chickens.

[stooo]

50 Years of abuse of Antibiotics.
Now they're more and more busted.

Re:Does vodka help?

[Anonymous Coward]

I regularly have my Russian women consume vodka before placing their proverbial lips on my appendage. That is, after I place my tinfoil hat on and cross my fingers. So far so good. My anecdotal evidence supports your inquiry AND you read it here on the internet so it must be true.

Antibiotic abuse and biodiversity

[Anonymous Coward]

Biodiversity is a good thing, but we're destroying it. We need to allow nature to create new antibiotics and use those as needed.

Also, there are some fucking absurd abuses of antibiotics. Doctors are way too quick to wrote prescriptions when they aren't necessary. We need to stop prescribing antibiotics when they aren't necessary for infections that will be stopped by the body's immune system or as preventive measures.

Furthermore, we shouldn't be wasting antibiotics on animals, especially for cattle. I'm sorry that one of the animals in your herd is sick. There's no fucking reason to put antibiotics in the feed of all of your cattle. That's fucking ridiculous. Don't use antibiotics on cattle.

This is a fucking big deal. People who misuse antibiotics should lose their license to practice medicine. I'd also support prison time for it.

Re:Antibiotic abuse and biodiversity

[golodh]

Apart from your gratuitous use of the f-word, I agree.

Perhaps this woman's imminent death can serve as a rallying point to ban the (grossly irresponsible) use of antibiotics in foodstock fodder.

Expect the foodstock industry to fight any such suggestion tooth and nail of course. Such a ban will cost them money since foodstock put on weight more slowly when not dosed with low levels of antibiotics, and any scare stories about antibiotics-resistant bacteria are "so many radical treehuggers' fantasies" of course.

"Huh ... it's already happened you say? I thought we had another five years at least. Hmm ... denounce the linkage a speculation based on evolution theory, increase the lobbyist budget, and see if we can't get a deal with a nice understanding conservative presidential candidate."

Why oh why do we need to actually see an antibiotics-resistant bacteria infect somebody before we'll acknowledge the blindingly obvious about to happen?

Re:Antibiotic abuse and biodiversity

[Anonymous Coward]

When it spreads to her kidneys she will.

Re:Antibiotic abuse and biodiversity

[ilsaloving]

The only problem is that, like climate change, it's already too late. We should have taken control of antibiotics use *before* antibiotic-immune bacteria evolved. Now it's too late.

But as usual, people are too greedy and short sighted to care about minor details like destroying the single biggest and most important defence modern medicine has to help people.

Re:Antibiotic abuse and biodiversity

[AK Marc]

But at this point, there's no link between over-prescription of antibiotics and resistant strains. People like to blame the over-prescription, but take a person with a viral infection, and no bacterial infection. But the studies are sufficiently split on the topic that one can only say there's no clear link either way.

Re:Antibiotic abuse and biodiversity

[gumbi west]

If you read the article in the NYT you see that it wasn't resistant to a different antibiotic (that they presumably treated it with). The issue is that bacteria can swap DNA and so it's now "out there". All that needs to happen is for one bacteria to grab on to this at the same time that it has everything else.

Re:Antibiotic abuse and biodiversity

[gumbi west]

link http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05...

Re:Antibiotic abuse and biodiversity

[liquid_schwartz]

I'd also support prison time for it.

You underestimate the cost of prisons.

Re:Antibiotic abuse and biodiversity

[Opportunist]

Especially because it's people who would shit their pants at the prospect of going to prison, so that "deterrent" bullshit would for a change actually do something.

Do you think someone who has literally NOTHING gives a shit about being incarcerated? Someone who doesn't know where to get his next lunch from let along where to put his head next time the piss comes down from above because what he calls "home" is something where "thermal renovation" means burning it down to the ground 'cause that's the cheapest way to get rid of the rubble? You think someone like this is "deterred" by the prospect of having a warm, dry place to live with 3 means a day if all he has to do is bash your head in a few times to earn this? And if he doesn't get caught he earned the money from your pocket. That's what we in the biz call win-win.

No, for a change this would hit someone who would actually consider going to prison a DEcrease of his living standard.

Re:Antibiotic abuse and biodiversity

[yes-but-no]

Why oh why do we need to actually see an antibiotics-resistant bacteria infect somebody before we'll acknowledge the blindingly obvious about to happen?

Because, Sir, we as a species are dumb.

Re:Antibiotic abuse and biodiversity

[silentcoder]

Well... we lack anything at all to stop it from doing so.

How soon people forget... less than a hundred years ago the vast majority of bacterial infections were fatal. Penicillin has saved more lives than we can count, probably at least as many as pasteurization (which we've had for 2 centuries longer). Destroying the efficacy of our most powerful life-saving weapon through overuse remains one of the most monumentally stupid things humanity could ever do and we seem hellbent on doing it.
This is the bacterial equivalent of anti-vaxxers and both are risking not just their own lives but millions, perhaps billions, of others. There have been multiple plagues in history that wiped out 25% or more of the human population, and those were all constrained by geography - a constraint that does not exist today - oh and some of the worst of them were bacterial. The most famous - the black death - was caused by bubonic plague, a bacterial infection. Imagine if a bacterium or virus with the virulence of bubonic plague happened today... we could easily see 75% or more of humanity dead just from direct infection. City streets lined with corpses - the cleanup services long ago overrun so every body lies there for weeks stinking and spreading the disease further. Quarantines become impossible to enforce as there are just not enough healthy people to enforce them. Complete economic collapse as every industry grinds to a standstill. All of which cause more deaths and violence. Some economists have calculated that Africa's negative GDP can be ENTIRELY accounted for by Malaria and, if that was eradicated, it would be a rich continent. And compared to something like plague, malaria is a lightweight since it can't spread anywhere that doesn't have a suitable climate for the one mosquito that can spread it.

Of course those who profit from some blatantly idiotic things as giving antibiotics to factory farmed animals to boost growth would call this alarmist... and conveniently forget that this has happened before, many times. It is not alarmist to say that if we destroy the thing that made it stop happening, that it would happen again.

Re:Antibiotic abuse and biodiversity

[silentcoder]

Yeah bubonic plague was just a story right. Immune systems are actually pretty limited things without drugs that help them - and historically, most people did NOT survive most infections. There is no evolutionary drive to evolve a GOOD immune system - just good enough for SOME to survive.

Oh and about 99% of natural immune system consists of one organ: the skin. Once an infection gets past that barrier it's odds of killing are pretty high. Even the flu can easily have high fatality rates if just a few conditions converge. Somewhere between 3 and 5 percent of the entire human population was killed by a single flu outbreak a mere 98 years ago. Aggravated by the fact that a world war had concluded just a few months earlier.

Re: Antibiotic abuse and biodiversity

[silentcoder]

>Second best. Vaccine's are the best.

No, they belong on different scales as they target different kinds of diseases. Vaccines are a defense against viral infections. Antiobiotics against bacteria. A huge contributor to our current problem was misusing the latter on infections of the former kind - where it has no efficacy whatsoever, but does help grow resistant bacteria.
You can't compare them and say "X" is better than "Y" though, since they are used for different purposes. It's like trying to say that "Pissing from the left side of the bowl is better than having ham sandwiches for lunch".

Re:Antibiotic abuse and biodiversity

[silentcoder]

Frankly, it makes a helluva lot more sense to throw these people in prison (for risking the wellbeing of the entire human race) than to throw kids in there for smoking some weed and risking exactly no harm to anybody at all.

Re:Antibiotic abuse and biodiversity

[Evtim]

And for the bacterial infection go phage! Oh, but you can't patent a naturally occurring cure. We can't have that - saving lives without making PROFIT....are you Marxist or something ;)

Re:Antibiotic abuse and biodiversity

[bluefoxlucid]

"Allow nature to create new antibiotics"? That is the dumbest shit I have heard. You take the bacteria, you examine its genetic code and locate proteins which are critical to its function but unknown to humans, you find proteins on its cell membrane which are unique markers and don't match with humans or livestock, and you engineer chemicals and counter-proteins to interfere with that. Resistance requires fundamental structural changes for which we can then adjust overnight; and highly-engineered antibiotics are less-likely to have random, unpredicted effects on the human and animal and the gut flora.

Re:Antibiotic abuse and biodiversity

[bluefoxlucid]

Is e-coli really that dangerous? Last time I got it, it gave me a stomach ache.. I cried for like five hours, then it went away; then I shit my ass the next morning.

Salmonella gives me a headache and the shits (even like the fifth time in three months), and I generally ignore it. People panic over that, too.

Pro tip: if the beef smells rotten or you managed to make some wicked pink chicken by accidentally undercooking it, maybe you should do something besides eat that.

Re:Antibiotic abuse and biodiversity

[Spacelem]

Depends on the strain (some produce some really nasty toxins), and who's getting it. Some E. coli is harmless, and lives commensally in your gut, helping you digest your food.

On the other hand, enterohaemorrhagic E. coli O157:H7 (EHEC) can give you acute kidney failure, and has killed children and old people whose immune systems weren't strong enough.

Re:Antibiotic abuse and biodiversity

[pnutjam]

They are mostly dangerous to the young and old, or those with weakened immune systems.

Re:Antibiotic abuse and biodiversity

[bluefoxlucid]

Ah. I'm perpetually an adolescent and my immune system is awesome, so I guess that makes sense.

Re:Antibiotic abuse and biodiversity

[LeadSongDog]

Doctors are way too quick to wrote prescriptions when they aren't necessary.

True, but they're also way too reluctant to culture samples on the patient's first presentation. That has nearly no downside (except cost) and avoids the guessing game of "Well, it didn't respond to that antibiotic, let's try this one", which created an increased evolutionary pressure toward multiple resistance.

Re:Antibiotic abuse and biodiversity

[LeadSongDog]

it's already too late

I call bullshit. Sure we need new antibiotics, but if we don't correct the institutional malpractices, those too will become useless before long.

Re:Antibiotic abuse and biodiversity

[oxbow lake]

Correct me if I'm wrong. In the U.S., the antibiotic that is given to livestock is monensin, or other ionophore antibiotics which are effective against gram-positive aerobic bacteria and coccidia, and is not used in human medicine. E coli is gram negative, and the concerning antibiotic resistance that this new strain has is to polymixins (specifically colistin). So while I happen to agree that antibiotics for growth promotion is not a good thing, the connection between that and the development of E coli that is resistant to multiple antibiotics used in human therapy is not obvious. If you can, please do clarify it for me.

Re: Antibiotic abuse and biodiversity

[Anonymous Coward]

You're absolutely, completely, horribly wrong. Please educate yourself before uttering so much as another word on this topic. Seriously, are you high? -PCP

Re:Antibiotic abuse and biodiversity

[PCM2]

Well... we lack anything at all to stop it from doing so.

We may lack anything. But she has something ... it's called an immune system.

Note, also, that the Reuters story has been corrected. They analyzed the woman's bacteria and noticed it would be resistant to colistin, a "last-resort antibiotic." It's not resistant to all the other ones, too -- unlike what the first version of the story said. It's just that we know bacteria can be resistant to all the other ones, and it wouldn't be so hard for this strain to pick up those other genes, resulting in an unstoppable bacteria. This is not that unstoppable bacteria; but it's proven once again that it is theoretically possible for one to exist.

Re:Antibiotic abuse and biodiversity

[golodh]

@oxbow take

See for example here: http://consumersunion.org/news... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

You'll note that (1) monensin is only one of the antibiotics used in livestock fodder and (2) that not all antibiotics used are ionophores (which means: see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... ) that they can pass through the cell membrane in a specific way). Plain old penicillin (which is nicely broad-spectrum, so that lots and lots of bacteria get to feel the evolutionary pressure) is an example of an antibiotic that doesn't work like the "ionophore" type of antibiotics.

Wide-spread use of low-dosage antibiotics is an ideal environment for bacteria to acquire tricks like enzymes that disable certain classes of antibiotics, thus rendering them resistant. So you get reservoirs in which resistant bacteria can thrive.

Then people eat that meat, providing a direct route into humans. Besides which those bacteria exit their reservoirs in other ways and end up in the environment.

So you get resistant bacteria passing through human guts and e.g. in sewers. If there hadn't been any, there would be almost no source of antibiotics resistant bacteria.

The other main avenue is Americans demanding (and getting) antibiotics prescriptions that (a) aren't useful and (b) often enough aren't finished. Resulting in selection opportunities for antibiotics resistant bacteria inside the human body.

Now bacteria swap genetic traits with each other all the time, by simply exchanging bits of DNA. Both in the sewers and in people's guts.

Meaning you get a diffuse pathway of antibiotic resistance from foodstock to humans, from humans to other humans, and in e.g. sewers. Not something that will immediately cause problems, but one with a finite probability to, sooner or later, lead to antibiotic resistant bacteria to spread. That's where the law of large numbers kicks in, e.g. by rolling the dice continuously by routinely dosing feedstock with antibiotics.

I grant you that the actual pathways are less than obvious, and rely on the law of large numbers to deliver their payload. But that the probability is that sooner or that payload (resistant bacteria in humans) will be delivered. In fact it's all but guaranteed.

So, the best way to stop such bacteria from making the journey is to make sure that there aren't any being evolved. The second best way is to make sure that there aren't many being evolved.

Both avenues require cessation of livestock antibiotics and much tighter control on antibiotics prescriptions.

Re:Antibiotic abuse and biodiversity

[golodh]

The only problem is that, like climate change, it's already too late. We should have taken control of antibiotics use *before* antibiotic-immune bacteria evolved. Now it's too late.

No it's not.

Pardon me for being crude, but the fact that we are seeing one patient infected by an antibiotic resistant bacteria doesn't mean the end of the world (except perhaps for that one patient).

By and large we'll continue being able to treat bacterial infections with antibiotics, but the probability of some of those cases not responding to treatment will increase from practically zero to almost zero. More if you're in a hospital that doesn't take sufficient care in the antiseptic department (e.g. cleaning the wards, operating theatres, elementary hygiene on part of staff before touching a patient, and medical equipment). Too bad for the individuals involved, but not a big threat to the population as a whole.

Those primarily exposed to higher risk are patients undergoing cancer therapy, complex surgery, arthritis, dialysis, and transplantation surgery (see http://www.cdc.gov/drugresista... pp. 24). The populations concerned are substantial, but with good antiseptic measures only a small percentage will be infected (and run an increased risk of dying).

Of course the CDC warns about consequences (as is it's job). See e.g. http://www.cdc.gov/drugresista... . They point to linkage between irresponsible antibiotics use and antibiotics resistance and promote "good stewardship" to slow down the spread of antibiotic resistance (see e.g. http://www.cdc.gov/drugresista... ).

In fact the CDC have proposed an action plan (https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/national_action_plan_for_combating_antibotic-resistant_bacteria.pdf ) for dealing with antibiotic resistance (see: http://www.cdc.gov/drugresista.... ) which has been funded by congress (this year).

Sorry to disappoint you: (1) the sky isn't falling down (2) our "silver bullet" antibacterial treatment just got tarnished a little, so that risks of getting a fatal infection when you're in the vulnerable population segment increase (3) there's nothing you can specifically do about that (except trying not to get a condition that requires you to receive treatment) (4) what you can do is supporting commonsense measures (like those proposed by the CDC) to slow down the spread and reduce the risk of getting infected.

Re:Antibiotic abuse and biodiversity

[liquid_schwartz]

Those who know me have heard me say I wouldn't pay fifty cents to keep a pot head in jail or prison. I completely agree that prisons are better used for more serious things than weed. In truth, if you want to focus on the dangers of unvaccinated people I'd focus more on illegal immigration. That has been shown to have caused actual new diseases rather than hypothetical ones as shown here: http://www.washingtontimes.com...

Re:Antibiotic abuse and biodiversity

[silentcoder]

There is nothing about illegal immigration that makes disease spreading more likely than legal immigration - at least from the same countries. But the risk of new diseases are not going to be contained or reduced, it's simply beyond our abilities to ever do that. When we encounter a new disease, it's going to kill some people before anybody can develop immunity, let alone vaccines - it's just the nature of reality, you cannot plan for the unpredictable.

But we sure as hell don't need to be dying from old diseases which we have the technology to entirely eradicate.

Re:Does vodka help?

[Anonymous Coward]

Topical alcohol is an excellent disinfectant, however for internal infections alcohol tends to kill the host before the bugs so not such a good idea.

Re:Does vodka help?RTFA

[zlives]

protect themselves from the superbug and from other bacteria resistant to antibiotics by thoroughly washing their hands, washing fruits and vegetables thoroughly and preparing foods appropriately.

Perhaps not use antibiotics on animals

[NotInHere]

what about not using antibiotics on living animals? They serve as a feeding ground for antibiotics. The price would be that you have to pay more for products that include flesh, because you would have to isolate the animals better, in order to stop spreading illnesses.

Re:Perhaps not use antibiotics on animals

[tomhath]

More likely the bacteria was passed from humans to pigs.

Re:Perhaps not use antibiotics on animals

[NotInHere]

I would draw it between humans and animals. Maybe pets should get an exception, but even there the list of allowed antibiotics should be highly limited.

Re:Perhaps not use antibiotics on animals

[Lordpidey]

what about not using antibiotics on living animals?

Do you propose we medicate the dead animals then?

Re:Perhaps not use antibiotics on animals

[NotInHere]

lol, yeah I've misplaced that "living" here.

Re:Perhaps not use antibiotics on animals

[gumbi west]

As a living animal who has been helped by antibiotics, I object.

Re:Perhaps not use antibiotics on animals

[drinkypoo]

While that's a good idea, we don't know she didn't get it from a human. This is only the first reported case. Maybe there's someone out there dropping loose, biotoxic shits from here to Tehachapi

Re:Does vodka help?

[Tablizer]

Sure, if you dip the entire patient in the stuff, but it would kill the patient also. Please stay out of the medical biz.

Nice job humanity!

[slacka]

Total Failure of Government and Society and not a good sign for the future of the human race. I personally have been well aware of the risks of Antibiotic-Resistant for over 20 years. This was the text book example of natural selection in my High School Biology class.

Instead of listening to the scientists and public health officals on the risks, we have let the greed and money in big ag run make our laws. We let them dump antibiotics in our livestock food in so we could have cheap meat and now the chickens are coming home to roost.

Welcome back to the pre-antibiotic era where a cut can be deadly and hospitals can kill you. Nice job humanity!

Re:Nice job humanity!

[Anonymous Coward]

evolution is a bitch, i for one welcome our replacement species.

Re:Nice job humanity!

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice job humanity!

The human race has never had a good long game. Immediate comfort is irresistible to all animals.

Re:Nice job humanity!

[mabu]

One minute you blame government, the next you say we should listen to "public health officials." I think you contradict yourself.

Re:Nice job humanity!

[Stinky Cheese Man]

Welcome back to the pre-antibiotic era where a cut can be deadly and hospitals can kill you.

Hospitals can already kill you: Medical errors now third leading cause of death in United States

Re:Nice job humanity!

[Anonymous Coward]

I notice that Americans never make a distinction between the Government i.e. the elected politicians, and the public service. They're not quite the same thing in other jurisdictions.

Re:Nice job humanity!

[Anonymous Coward]

One minute you blame government, the next you say we should listen to "public health officials." I think you contradict yourself.

Not a contraction at all. The government as a whole can fail the people, while individuals within the government can warn of the impending threat.

Watch Frontline's "The problem with antibiotics", there a member of the CDC, a "public official", warns about feeding antibiotics to livestock, however the CDC cannot regulate animal food, that's the FDA's role. But the FDA's hands are tied by Senators who have been corrupted by big ag's money. Hence, our government failed us because "corporations are people".

Re:Nice job humanity!

[Uberbah]

One minute you blame government, the next you say we should listen to "public health officials." I think you contradict yourself.

Only if he's a Libertarian with double standards. All government is bad, because Chernobyl, in the same way that all businesses are bad, because Enron. One makes as much sense as the other.

Re:Nice job humanity!

[StormReaver]

One minute you blame government, the next you say we should listen to "public health officials." I think you contradict yourself.

Not if you realize that the government officials who make the laws are not the public health officials warning about health issues. They are two totally separate groups of people. The former need to be hanged, and the latter need to be rewarded.

Re:Nice job humanity!

[silentcoder]

While I agree with your sentiment, your example is flawed. Chernobyl was a private corporation - they are an example more like Enron than like government. In fact that company still exists, and is still in business. My own government seems hellbent to sign a major nuclear procurement deal with them... because of COURSE we'll buy our nuclear reactors from the only company to ever blow one the fuck up.

Re:Nice job humanity!

[PCM2]

What is more, there are strains of resistant bacteria that are known as "nosocomial" bacteria. That word means these particular strains are found in hospitals, and pretty much ONLY in hospitals. And you can go to hospitals from coast to coast and you will find these strains in ALL of them. They've evolved to thrive in hospitals. And you can spray down the surgery with as much antiseptic as you want, and you will probably still be able to swab a little bit of it from some surface, somewhere. So yes, hospitals are dangerous places. The longer you spend in one, the more likely you are to acquire some kind of infection, and the infection you get could be a pretty bad one (worse than if you got infected at home).

Prevention tips

[Anonymous Coward]

1) don't let the Mexicans that pick your lettuce take a shit in the patch.
2) don't fuck butts without a jimmy

Re: Prevention tips

[Opportunist]

4) Stay the hell out of third world countries.

Re:Legal?

[zlives]

they still work but because we have declared war on illegal drugs, you will probably have to go to jail for ever afterwards.

Time to try phage therapy?

[ffkom]

Bacteriophages have already been helpful with many cases of bacterial infection, they would probably already be in more widespread use (outside of the former USSR) if big pharma wouldn't insist on only selling patented stuff for the better of profits.

Re:Time to try phage therapy?

[philosiphus]

Big pharma could probably develop their own designer phages targeting a specific genus or even group within the genus.

Re:Time to try phage therapy?

[alvinrod]

That might not be a bad thing though. Widespread use was how we got into this problem in the first place

Antibiotic alternatives

[bumblebee0x63]

This isn't well reported in the media, and that Reuters link crashes my Fedora system hard, but what about that phage therapy supposedly commercialized in Georgia? I have no idea if it works. There are so many medical scams these days, that I wonder if there even is a "doctor" who isn't a crook, scam artist, charlatan, or quack. (The whole U.S. healthcare system for sure...)

Try the original antibiotic

[swell]

Silver. (Google 'silver colloid') Still in use today to sterilize touchable surfaces in hospitals. Sorry, it can't be patented so no big corporation will be interested. The medical establishment will only steer you to patented products, so be wary of their advice. You can even make your own. Far more adaptable than other antibiotics. Drink it; inhale it; drop it in your eyes; lavish it on skin burns; spray it on icky surfaces you have to touch... Some minor precautions advised (don't drink large quantities over a long period of time).

Re:Try the original antibiotic

[ttucker]

Until you turn blue.

Re:Try the original antibiotic

[Anonymous Coward]

We switched to anitbiotics because silver is neither safe nor effective for treating, just sterilizing.

Re:Try the original antibiotic

[swell]

Sorry you are unable to follow the Google suggestion. When you learn to read before you rant you will eventually discover that the FUD about silver safety is a scam. You need to consume gallons over a long period of time to experience a change of skin color, and even then it doesn't seem to have health consequences.

When you are selling an expensive patented antibiotic and competing against less expensive OTC silver, will you spread the joy that silver is more effective? Or will you look for any way to eliminate the competition? Use your head when you read various opinions. Or join the marketing staff at Monsanto where they need shills like you.

Re:Try the original antibiotic

[blind biker]

Silver ions are no replacement for antibiotics: they are completely indiscriminate.

Re:Try the original antibiotic

[Opportunist]

Wow, the medical woo preachers have reached /. I thought I wouldn't see the day.

OK, if you want to join the blue man group and don't mind your kidneys to shut down eventually, go for it. Wash it down with a big glass of chlorine bleach that you idiots love so much as well, just please don't use it on your kids.

Re:Try the original antibiotic

[sackvillian]

When you are selling an expensive patented antibiotic and competing against less expensive OTC silver, will you spread the joy that silver is more effective?

I'm not sure where you live, but here in Ontario we have a law that all prescriptions must be automatically replaced with generic versions unless otherwise specified by the physician (very rarely). And guess what? There have not been many new antibiotics discovered in the past 15 years, so the vaaaast majority prescribed are generic. We further make use of all sorts of topical antibacterial solutions containing iodine and hydrogen peroxide, for example.

In other words, if there was any validity at all to what you were saying, physicians would jump at the chance to prescribe silver.

Re:Try the original antibiotic

[bluefoxlucid]

DumbFace

"Such bacteria were known in China..."

[JoeyRox]

More proof of our trade imbalance with China.

Blame the farmers .. yeah !

[Anonymous Coward]

Before you wanna place blames, ask yourself --- if you are a farmer and you only make money selling "LIVING" livestock, would you do everything you can to keep your animal alive - until the second before they got inside slaughterhouse?

Farmers don't get paid for sick/dying/dead animals, that is why they feed those animals crazy amount of whatever antibiotics that they can find

If you guys really want to place blame, blame the government instead

The pharmaceutical companies invested huge amount of $ to develop the antibiotics, only to meet with government regulation that prohibit them to push it to the human medical channels (new antibiotics have to be 'quarantine for x number of years' to have a 'weapon of last resort' against whatever drug resistant bugs that they come across)

This stupid regulation only forces the big pharma to go another route, and push their product into non-human channels - the farm animals, which the FDA doesn't have any jurisdiction on

Now the superbugs come home and bite our ass - what are we going to do?

Ban the use of antibiotic on the farm animals?

That will only create a lucrative black markets for farm-grade antibiotics

Re:Blame the farmers .. yeah !

[Anonymous Coward]

This is only a problem for factory farms. Regular farms don't need to rely on antibiotics to keep animals healthy.

We should ban factory farming techniques.

It will drive the price of meat up significantly. That's fine; a whole generation of first-worlders can learn just how protein-rich a plant-based diet can be (before you object, be aware that the shaolin monks (the most powerful athletes in the world) live on a strictly vegan diet from the day they start training (at around 5 years of age). If THEY can do it, so can you!)

Re:Blame the farmers .. yeah !

[Opportunist]

Personal responsibility (or rather "don't give a shit about anyone but yourself") yes. But god forbid corporations would be responsible for anything they do! That could endanger jobs! Not to mention profits.

Re:Blame the farmers .. yeah !

[dow]

Real life farmer here. Maybe is the USA cows in pastures are a lie, but in the UK ours spend the summer out in the fields. It's cheaper to keep them in a pasture than in a barn. Also, we don't feed our cows antibiotics. Again, that's something they might do in the US, but in Europe antibiotics in cattle feeds have been banned for quite some time. We have some factory farms in the UK also, but nothing the size of many US herds. One farmer wanted to build an eight thousand head farm, but it made national news and there was massive public resistance. They do not want that sort of farm in the UK.

If you want to blame farmers for using such practises, blame yourself for looking for the cheapest food you can get. Supermarkets compete on prices. You wanted cheap food, you got cheap food. Now, you realise the price of that cheap food. The farmers were just giving people what they wanted, the cheapest food they could produce. Did you ever pick up an item at the supermarket and think that it was too cheap? When it comes to many quality foods, people should really stop asking themselves "Why is it so expensive?" and ask "Why is the other stuff so cheap?"

Re:Blame the farmers .. yeah !

[Evtim]

Did you mean vegetarian, rather than vegan? Very different things, those two....also, in one of the cult movies about the monks [the classic one with Jet Li at the age of 17], Li smuggles roasted snake for his fellows monks in order to strengthen them for the coming challenge...even the teacher takes a bite with half-guilty/half-gleeful expression....

Re:Blame the farmers .. yeah !

[pnutjam]

Shaolin monks are allowed to eat meat. They were given a dispensation by the Emperor at some point.

Re:Blame the farmers .. yeah !

[Kilroy_here]

I work for an organic dairy and we are already banned from using antibiotics on our cows. If a cow gets sick enough that they require antibiotics then they are culled from our production heard, treated and then sold to a non-organic dairy.

Re:Blame the farmers .. yeah !

[Khashishi]

Everywhere you look, you see tragedy of the commons. But the libertarians continue to blame regulation.

Re: Blame the farmers .. yeah !

[Dread_ed]

You are conflating the politics of personal responsibility which is a by-product of conservative thinking and corporatism which is a by-product of the entrenched American oligarchy.

One serves as a guide for personal decision making and political critique. The other is a means of subverting control of the populace and funneling all wealth through a small percentage of already-wealthy business owners.

How do you mix those up?

Re:Blame the farmers .. yeah !

[minstrelmike]

Farms don't overuse antibiotics to keep their animals healthy; they overuse them to make them gain weight faster.

Re: Blame the farmers .. yeah !

[Opportunist]

Me? I don't need to mix them, they are already mixed. The same people preach personal responsibility and "take care of yourself" are protecting corporations and bailing them out.

Re:Blame the farmers .. yeah !

[Khashishi]

That's stupid. Whose private property will the air fall under if we abolish the government? OK, suppose it's yours. How are you even remotely capable of protecting your private property from exploitation by others without government regulation?

Private property exists because regulations exist to protect private property. Regulation creates things like mineral rights and spectrum rights and land deeds.

Re:Blame the farmers .. yeah !

[Rakarra]

If price was the only thing people shopped on, we wouldn't eat so much meat in the first place. Meat is extremely expensive since it just takes a lot more resources to create a pound of beef than it does a pound of carrots.

Re: Blame the farmers .. yeah !

[liquid_schwartz]

I think that most conservatives I know are also not in favor of bailing out corporations and fear the growing corporate power as much as the left. What manages to keep them divided is mostly the lefts war on Christianity and white people in general with white Christian men at the top of the hit list. This is well enough known that it's hard to miss but here is a link anyway: http://www.washingtontimes.com... The 1% holds power by dividing us. We are the 99% was a brilliant slogan and a poignant observation. However the 99% includes the dreaded white male christian as well as every other group. We can all work towards making a better life together or we can fragment and live in squalor as inequality grows.

Re: Blame the farmers .. yeah !

[Opportunist]

"War on Christianity"? Melodrama much?

Only in America would giving someone rights be seen as taking away someone else's rights.

Re:Blame the farmers .. yeah !

[FormOfActionBanana]

That is crazy. Antibiotics are used in farming to make bigger, beefier animals. Not "keep them alive"...

Re: Blame the farmers .. yeah !

[liquid_schwartz]

Interesting article: http://www.cnsnews.com/blog/ma... What made it interesting is that had the carefully selected victims been just any other group, other than white, this would still be in the papers. Some simpler examples that are closer to home are most people would like things like Christmas plays at schools, optional of course, but all this is banned. It was just fine for over a hundred years without causing an issue of separation of church and state but then suddenly it became an issue. Sad. Ultimately the community feeling goes away and we get to where we are today. Hardly a win for anyone.

I'm a little confused....

[plazman30]

Did they try every single antibiotic on this woman? Just because it has mcr-1 and is resistant to colistin doesn't mean it's resistant to everything. A friend of mine got a chest infection that was resistant to a lot of different antibiotics, including zithromax. After trying 4 different antibiotics, the doctor gave him sustained release penicillin, because, why not. 3 days later the couching stopped and he was on the mend.

An abundance of caution

[Okian Warrior]

Total Failure of Government and Society and not a good sign for the future of the human race. I personally have been well aware of the risks of Antibiotic-Resistant for over 20 years. This was the text book example of natural selection in my High School Biology class.

Instead of listening to the scientists and public health officals on the risks, we have let the greed and money in big ag run make our laws. We let them dump antibiotics in our livestock food in so we could have cheap meat and now the chickens are coming home to roost.

Welcome back to the pre-antibiotic era where a cut can be deadly and hospitals can kill you. Nice job humanity!

While what you say may be true, I disagree with your conclusions and your hindsight.

There should be no problem giving massive amounts of antibiotics to livestock. In fact, we should be giving *more*, or at least *more effective* antibiotics to livestock.

The regulatory problem wasn't from giving out too many antibiotics, it was because the regulations are so stiff that it's impossible to create new antibiotics. The fundamental flaw in the system was to make government bureaucrats responsible for risk, while making drug companies responsible for that risk.

This has led to risk-averse government bureaucrats setting the bar so high that it's become impossible to make new drugs.

The Hippocratic oath reads (in part): "above all, do no harm". This was rewritten by the FAA to be: "do no harm at any cost!"

It currently costs upwards of a billion dollars to bring a new prescription drug to market. No company can afford to make a new drug unless it can apply to everyone as a maintenance dose.

Viagra was only developed because it was a noticed side-effect of a high blood pressure medicine.

Suppose we had 25 approved antibiotics, and used them in 5-year increments in a rotating scale. Each year 5 of the 25 antibiotics could be used, and each year one would be rotated out and another added. Each antibiotic would be used for 5 years and then disappear for 20. It would take a very long time under that scheme for diseases to develop immunity.

We can't do that any more, because it's impossible to develop new antibiotics.

There's lots of common-sense ways we could change this, but we don't.

We're killing ourselves from an abundance of caution.

Re:An abundance of caution

[coofercat]

Had that abundance of caution extended to not giving humans and livestock antibiotics that they didn't need, then we'd probably have another 20 years to develop some new antibiotics.

Crop Rotation

[ThatsNotPudding]

This is a stupid question, but I've always wondered why old (very old, unused for decades) antibacterials can't be resurrected with a restored effectiveness. I liken it to the idea of rotating crops so the field soils aren't totally stripped of nutrients by planting the same crop year after year.

I mean: what does in benefit rather simple organisms to continue to pass along resistance to a spectrum of anti-biotic that their ancestors hadn't been exposed to in decades (and that's how many bacterial generations)? Isn't there a 'carrying capacity' or 'memory limit' to what can be added to their code that has to be slowly deprecated / de-prioritized just for physical space constraints? Asserting they have the Borg-like ability to perfectly add to their defenses without end, sounds a bit too apocalyptic to me.

Re:Crop Rotation

[Anonymous Coward]

Borg-like ability to adapt to the world *IS* what natural selection is about.

Those that survive have the necessary genes/mutations to survive the new environment. That "learning" is then passed on to others. Because the natural environment in which they live already has all of the other enemies too, if the new mutation didn't have that old learning the it would die.

Mutations happen when new code is added to a chain or existing code changes. If there is a carrying capacity then it hasn't yet been discovered.

Re:Crop Rotation

[Anonymous Coward]

crop rotation was replaced by fertilizers. a good % of those fertilizers turn into runoff and eventually flow into the lakes & ocean. the areas with high concentrations of fertilizer runoff turn into "dead zones" because of algae blooms.

Re:Crop Rotation

[Hognoxious]

My understanding is that antibiotics work by interfering with some process inside the cell, such as protein synthesis. A mutation in an enzyme may mean that the interference doesn't work any more because the antibiotic doesn't inhibit the new form. Bingo, it's resistant to that antibiotic.

Does an individual cell keep the old gene around or run the processes in parallel? I thought not, which would mean being immune to antibiotic X means it's vulnerable to Y. The problem is, we haven't discovered Y yet.

Re:Crop Rotation

[LMariachi]

That's not a stupid question, because that's exactly how we use insecticides. I used to live in a building where the exterminator's records were posted (in the basement, behind the laundry machines, and guarded by a leopard, but nonetheless public) and you could see how they'd rotate the insecticides every six to nine months. The exact rotation period may not have been arrived at through scrupulous scientific rigor, but even the schmucks whose awful job it is to crawl through disgusting basements breathing in toxic poisons know the whys of rotation.

It may be that resistance on a bacterial level is not that easily "forgotten" though. Even if a large majority of a bacterial population "forgets" its resistant genes, they reproduce so quickly that those who still carry the resistance will repopulate in very short order.

Re:Crop Rotation

[bluegutang]

Already done. The last-resort drug this patient's bacteria are resistant to, colistin, is decades old. It's only used as a last resort because it's harmful to the kidneys.

Re:Crop Rotation

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

This is a stupid question, but I've always wondered why old (very old, unused for decades) antibacterials can't be resurrected with a restored effectiveness. I liken it to the idea of rotating crops so the field soils aren't totally stripped of nutrients by planting the same crop year after year.

It's not a stupid question at all. Frankly, people should be asking this question in case nobody thought of it. The problem is that this has actually been tried and in a lot of cases it hasn't helped. Some of the older drugs stopped being used because they were toxic or had some very undesirable possible side effects and they were replaced with drugs that were safer to the patient to use. It turns out that once bacteria start getting highly resistant that they are basically resistant to almost everything including the older drugs. We desperately need drug manufacturers to get interested in new lines of antibiotics, but due to research cost there hasn't been a lot of interest in developing new ones. And as others have pointed out given how the government seems completely and utterly disinterested in the USA (and other countries) in stopping people from giving antibiotics to livestock, we've created this mess ourselves and seem oddly uninterested in fixing it.

Re:Does vodka help?

[Maxo-Texas]

just fyi..

From the cdc..

"The efficacy of alcohol-based hand-hygiene products is affected by several factors, including the type of alcohol used, concentration of alcohol, contact time, volume of alcohol used, and whether the hands are wet when the alcohol is applied. Applying small volumes (i.e., 0.2â"0.5 mL) of alcohol to the hands is not more effective than washing hands with plain soap and water (63,64). One study documented that 1 mL of alcohol was substantially less effective than 3 mL (91). The ideal volume of product to apply to the hands is not known and may vary for different formulations. However, if hands feel dry after rubbing hands together for 10â"15 seconds, an insufficient volume of product likely was applied."

Not humanity. Capitalism.

[Uberbah]

It's not like there was a mass social movement demanding that cows be inundated with antibiotics because they're knee-deep in their own shit on a factory farm. Like climate change, asbestos or the tobacco industry, this is about profit for a handful of people.

Re:Does vodka help?

[PolygamousRanchKid]

I regularly have my Russian women consume vodka before placing their proverbial lips on my appendage . . . you read it here on the internet so it must be true.

Read?

GIFs or JPGs, or it never happened.

Re:Does vodka help?

[Opportunist]

Provided you don't drink the vodka after giving your wang a refreshing bath...

Mostly hype and misinformation

[Anonymous Coward]

The original publication makes no claims about the strain being resistant to to _all known/legal antibiotics_. Maybe everyone should use some critical thinking and check the soruces or you could read more sane analysis at Ars Technica.

http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/05/everybody-be-cool-a-nightmare-superbug-has-not-heralded-the-apocalypse-yet/

Silver poisonning

[aepervius]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Not life threatening but the quantity of silver required to effectivelky treat such bacterial infection may lead easily to agyria, localized or generalized. On the other hand we may get better avatar porn, so there is a, hehe , silver lining. (and now I'll slap myself silly for the easy joke).

Re:Silver poisonning

[LeadSongDog]

Yeah, but silver's expensive and copper or bronze will work, without being stolen. Stainless steel, not so much.

Re:Does vodka help?

[silentcoder]

Wouldn't strong alcohol on the glans burn like hell ? And it's no good using it only on the outside of the foreskin (in case you're American, it's this thing healthy and unmutilated penises in the rest of the world have).

Re:Does vodka help?

[Opportunist]

I sure as fuck don't want to be the one finding that one out.

Re: Does vodka help?

[silentcoder]

Agreed. Not an experiment I'll be volunteering for...

herbal options

[MauriceV]

There are herbal options for treating this, http://www.amazon.com/Herbal-A...

Why am I not terrified

[Provocateur]

Why am I not terrified in this post antibiotic world?

The end of the modern era

[CAIMLAS]

This is the beginning of the end of the modern era.

It was modern medicine - antibiotics, mainly - which allowed the advances which make modern life possible. Things like space flight, or even high capacity public transit, become untenable when the possibility of fatal bacterial strains being spread in the public: people will shun crowded, filthy public transit for fear of contracting something.

And just forget about manned space flight.

a little additional info

[Pax681]

http://arstechnica.com/science...

Re:Does vodka help?

[KlomDark]

I thought you were supposed to soak it in cider.

From: Oxford Journal: Clinical Infectious Diseases

[walterbyrd]

> "Some people argue that antibiotic-resistant strains that develop in food animals are largely irrelevant to human health because E. coli strains are relatively species-specific and so will not cause disease in people. This current study [5] shows that argument is flawed."

http://cid.oxfordjournals.org/content/49/2/202.full

No, don't be too alarmed. This is not the first.

[stradric]

Read about why the news media sucks and you shouldn't freak out. http://arstechnica.com/science...

Proving it's safe and effective is expensive

[tepples]

if big pharma wouldn't insist on only selling patented stuff for the better of profits.

Other than through monopoly rents, how else is the advocate for a particular new treatment supposed to recoup the hundreds of millions of dollars needed to prove to the U.S. FDA that the treatment is safe and effective?

Re:Proving it's safe and effective is expensive

[ffkom]

Why would the advocate of some (in this case not even new) therapy need to be a for-profit company? The US spends billions on military invasions abroad each year, with the questionable rationale that this lowers the number of terror victims. Yet, orders of magnitude more people die from diseases that this money could most probably heal. Ok, asking a US politician for spending money on saving people is also orders of magnitude less likely to succeed than asking for spending money on killing people, yet that doesn't mean it would not be possible.

It is resistant to colistin, not all known antibio

[kelk1]

The original article has been corrected: "This story corrects headline, first and third paragraphs to show bacteria is resistant to last-resort antibiotic colistin, not all antibiotics"

Natural products prevents bacteria.

[kitquartetomagico]

There are products and natural supplements that can help against infection, bacteria and viruses.