Drug-Resistant 'Nightmare Bacteria' Pose Growing Threat (statnews.com)

"Nightmare bacteria" with unusual resistance to antibiotics of last resort were found more than 200 times in the United States last year in a first-of-a-kind hunt to see how much of a threat these rare cases are becoming, health officials said this week. From a report: That's more than they had expected to find, and the true number is probably higher because the effort involved only certain labs in each state, officials say. The problem mostly strikes people in hospitals and nursing homes who need IVs and other tubes that can get infected. In many cases, others in close contact with these patients also harbored the superbugs even though they weren't sick -- a risk for further spread. Some of the sick patients had traveled for surgery or other health care to another country where drug-resistant germs are more common, and the superbug infections were discovered after they returned to the U.S.

Comments

Agricultural profits

[burtosis]

The reason antibiotics are losing effectiveness is due to agricultural practices and horizontal gene transfer as well as overuse or inappropriate use such as for viral infections or not finishing treatments. Most damage was done simply to make meat slightly cheaper to produce. It is fed 24/7/365 to animals stuffed cheek to jowl, with the overflow and waste washed into the waterways. This develops resistance faster than most any method short of purposefully engineering biological weapons. For that slim profit margin increase we have traded the modern safety that made dying of a small cut or inconsequential infection unheard of in most of the world. At this rate it's going to resemble ancient times when any surgery at all, even simple stitches, brought a high chance of a fatal infection.

Re:Terrible

[mark-t]

If there was no observable indication that the number appeared to be increasing at alarming rates, as is the case with the other statistics you cited, then your sarcastically delivered point about panicking about this would be well made.

If you are observing an exponential growth in the number of cases from year to year, however, then the fact that its observed impact so far may not yet have grown to be even anywhere nearly as significant as the impact of other factors is not sufficient cause to be so dismissive.