Antibiotic resistance
Category archives for Antibiotic resistance
The impact of HIV on Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis
Posted by Tara C. Smith on February 26, 2013 Second of five student guest posts by Nai-Chung N. Chang Tuberculosis (TB) is a major disease burden in many areas of the world. As such, it was declared a global public health emergency in 1993 by the World Health Organization (WHO). It is a bacterial disease that is transmitted through the air when an infected…
Waste not, want not? Poultry “feather meal” as another source of antibiotics in feed
Posted by Tara C. Smith on April 5, 2012 The ecology of antibiotic resistance on farms is complicated. Animals receive antibiotic doses in their food and water, for reasons of growth promotion, disease prophylaxis, and treatment. Other chemicals in the environment, such as cleaning products or antimicrobial metals in the feed, may also act as drivers of antibiotic resistance. Antibiotic-resistant organisms may also be…
The human origins of “pig” Staph ST398
Posted by Tara C. Smith on February 21, 2012 I recently gave a talk to a group here in Iowa City, emphasizing just how frequently we share microbes. It was a noontime talk over a nice lunch, and of course I discussed how basically we humans are hosts to all kinds of organisms, and analysis of our “extended microbiome” shows that we share not…
MRSA in pork products: does the “antibiotic-free” label make a difference?
Posted by Tara C. Smith on January 19, 2012 Back in November, I blogged about one of our studies, examining methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in Iowa meat products. In that post, I mentioned that it was one of two studies we’d finished on the subject. Well, today the second study is out in PLoS ONE (freely available to all). In this study, we focused…
MRSA found in Iowa meat
Posted by Tara C. Smith on November 9, 2011 I’ve blogged previously on a few U.S. studies which investigated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus in raw meat products (including chicken, beef, turkey, and pork). This isn’t just a casual observation as one who eats food–I follow this area closely as we also have done our own pair of food sampling investigations here in Iowa, and will…
It’s not a freaking spider bite
Posted by Tara C. Smith on August 11, 2011 Over at White Coat Underground, Pal has the post that I’ve been meaning to write. Earlier this summer, a family member posted on Facebook that a friend of her daughter was nursing a “nasty spider bite” that she got while camping in Michigan. Her post claimed it was a Brown Recluse bite. Being my usually…
MRSA and bedbugs?
Posted by Tara C. Smith on May 12, 2011 An ahead-of-print paper in Emerging Infectious Diseases is generating some buzz in the mainstream media. While the findings are interesting, I’m honestly not sure how they got published, being so preliminary. Like many areas, Vancouver, British Columbia has seen a jump in the prevalence of bedbugs. After finding impoverished patients infested with the bugs, researchers…
Staph in food–what does it mean?
Posted by Tara C. Smith on April 19, 2011 As Maryn McKenna and others have reported, a paper was released on Friday showing a high percentage of drug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus contaminating raw, retail-available meat products. There has been a lot of media coverage of this finding–so what does the study say, and what are its implications? More after the jump.
New paper: Staphylococcus aureus ST398 in a childcare worker
Posted by Tara C. Smith on March 29, 2011 One of the reasons I’ve not been blogging as much over the past 2 years or so is that it’s been just insane in the lab. As I was still living off start-up funds and pilot grants, I didn’t have anyone full-time to take care of everything, so all the work has been done by…
MRSA ST398 in US swine
Posted by Tara C. Smith on January 23, 2009 A little over a year ago I put a post up documenting research out of Canada which found methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in Canadian pigs. This had also been seen in Europe (with a lot of research coming out of the Netherlands). What I didn’t note at the time was that we were gearing up…