Tag Archives: Antibiotics
Cartoon – Unfortunately, There’s No Cure
A ‘slow catastrophe’ unfolds as the golden age of antibiotics comes to an end
http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-antibiotic-resistance-20160711-snap-story.html
In early April, experts at a military lab outside Washington intensified their search for evidence that a dangerous new biological threat had penetrated the nation’s borders.
They didn’t have to hunt long before they found it.
On May 18, a team working at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research here had its first look at a sample of the bacterium Escherichia coli, taken from a 49-year-old woman in Pennsylvania. She had a urinary tract infection with a disconcerting knack for surviving the assaults of antibiotic medications. Her sample was one of six from across the country delivered to the lab of microbiologist Patrick McGann.
Within hours, a preliminary analysis deepened concern at the lab. Over the next several days, more sophisticated genetic sleuthing confirmed McGann’s worst fears.
There, in the bacterium’s DNA, was a gene dubbed mcr-1. Its presence made the pathogen impervious to the venerable antibiotic colistin.
Can the government encourage the development of new antibiotics?
It’s been nearly 30 years since scientists have found a new class of antibiotics. But U.S. lawmakers tried to give the drug industry a boost in 2012.
That year, they passed the Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act. It included provisions — collectively known as Generating Antibiotic Incentives Now, or GAIN — aimed at streamlining the government approval process for new antibiotics. It also boosted financial paybacks to drug companies that develop them.
Most hospitals fall short in following best practices for antibiotics use, study finds
Of the hospitals studied, only 39 percent had an action plan in place.
The End of Antibiotics? Drug-Resistant Superbug Reaches the US
For the first time, researchers have found a person in the United States carrying bacteria resistant to antibiotics of last resort, an alarming development that the top U.S. public health official says could mean “the end of the road” for antibiotics.
The antibiotic-resistant strain was found last month in the urine of a 49-year-old Pennsylvania woman. Defense Department researchers determined that she carried a strain of E. coli resistant to the antibiotic colistin, according to a study published Thursday in Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, a publication of the American Society for Microbiology. The authors wrote that the discovery “heralds the emergence of a truly pan-drug resistant bacteria.”
HOW FACTORY FARMS PLAY CHICKEN WITH ANTIBIOTICS
And the inside story of one company confronting its role in creating dangerous superbugs.
HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY
HENRY KOTULA 