antibiotic-resistant bacteria
kkrisberg | March 3, 2017Most news on the dangers of antibiotic-resistant infections focus on adults. But children are very much at risk too. In fact, a recent study found that U.S. children have experienced a 700 percent surge in infections caused by particular bacteria that’s both resistant to multiple antibiotics and responsible for growing numbers of serious bacterial infections in kids.
“These organisms are scary, they’re hard to treat and respond to few antibiotics…and it’s the type of antibiotic resistance that’s capable of spreading itself to adjacent bacteria even if those bacteria haven’t been exposed to…
lborkowski | June 1, 2016Back in November, researchers from China reported finding a gene that confers resistance to the last-resort antibiotic colistin in several E. coli isolates, and warned that pan-drug resistant Enterobacteriaceae -- a family of bacteria that includes common foodborne illness culprits E. coli and Salmonella -- "is inevitable and will ultimately become global." As researchers in other countries began examining stored isolates for the gene, MCR-1, they found it. STAT's Helen Branswell reports it "has been found in many European countries, parts of Asia, North Africa, South America, and North…
tsmith | May 27, 2016 E. coli, from Wikipedia commons
We've been expecting it, and now it's here.
Yesterday, two article were released showing that MCR-1, the plasmid-associated gene that provides resistance to the antibiotic colistin, has been found in the United States. And not just in one place, but in two distinct cases: a woman with a urinary tract infection (UTI) in Pennsylvania, reported in the journal Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, and a positive sample taken from a pig's intestine as part of the National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System (NARMS), which tracks…
lborkowski | December 7, 2015Last month, researchers from China reported in The Lancet Infectious Diseases that they had identified a gene (MCR-1) that confers antibiotic resistance to a last-resort antibiotic (colistin) and then found that gene in E. coli isolates from pigs, meat, and hospital patients. This prompted Danish researchers to re-examine the genomes of bacteria they had mapped previously, and they found the MCR-1 gene in sample from a patient who suffered a blood infection in 2015. They also found it in five food samples imported between 2012 and 2014.
Mike the Mad Biologist found the plasmid and protein…
lborkowski | November 23, 2015Last week was World Antibiotics Awareness Week, and a new study in The Lancet Infectious Diseases showed just how dire the antibiotics situation has gotten. Authors from the South China Agricultural University, the China Agricultural University, and other institutions identified a gene that confers resistance to a last-resort antibiotic, and then found that gene in E. coli isolates from 15% of raw meat samples, 21% of pigs about to be slaughtered, and 16% of hospital patients with infections. (The study is behind a paywall, but there's a helpful summary here.)
The authors warn that given…
lborkowski | November 5, 2014Best American Science and Nature Writing 2014, edited by Pulitzer-winning writer and professor Deborah Blum, features two pieces that remind us how public-health interventions can become less effective if we as a society don't use them appropriately -- and, based on the spelling of the authors' last names, they're right next to each other in the anthology. Maryn McKenna's "Imaging the Post-Antibiotics Futre," published in Medium, and Seth Mnookin's "The Return of Measles" from the Boston Globe Magazine warn that diseases we thought we'd conquered could easily return and become major killers…
lborkowski | March 7, 2014A few of the recent pieces I've liked:
Jim Morris, Lisa Song and David Hasemyer in a collaboration between the Weather Channel, InsideClimate News, and The Center for Public Integrity: Fracking the Eagle Ford Shale: Big Oil and Bad Air on the Texas Prairie
Brigid Schulte in the Washington Post: 'Mad Men' era of U.S. family policy coming to an end?
Tom Frieden at The Health Care Blog: CDC: Together We Can Provide Safer Patient Care
Farida Jhabvala Romero at Reporting on Health: California County Seeks to Eliminate Health Safety Net for the Undocumented
Ted Genoways at OnEarth: Hog Wild:…
lborkowski | July 31, 2013A few of the recent pieces I've liked:
Two Nature news features on antibiotic-resistant bacteria, by Maryn McKenna and Beth Mole, respectively: Antibiotic resistance: The last resort and MRSA: Farming up trouble
David Leonhardt in the New York Times: In Climbing Income Ladder, Location Matters
Jim Morris at the Center for Public Integrity: Industry muscle targets federal 'Report on Carcinogens'
Stephanie Lee in the San Francisco Chronicle/ Reporting on Health: Poverty, health struggles in scenic Mendocino
Charles Kenny & Justin Sandefur in Foreign Policy: Can Silicon Valley Save the World…
lborkowski | March 14, 2013Last week, CDC Director Thomas Frieden opened a press briefing by saying, "It's not often that our scientists come to me to say that we have a very serious problem, and we need to sound an alarm." What scientists found, and reported in CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, is that a growing proportion of Enterobacteriaceae (a family of bacteria known for causing hospital-acquired infections) are resistant to carbapenems, a type of antibiotics that's typically been the last line of attack against stubborn infections. Frieden explained why these carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (…
lborkowski | July 16, 2012If you haven't yet read Maryn McKenna's riveting Atlantic article "How Your Chicken Dinner is Creating a Drug-Resistant Superbug," you should. McKenna, working with the with the Food and Environment Reporting Network, has delved into research that's been accumulating about the association between the extensive use of antibiotics in poultry and the increase in drug-resistant urinary tract infections.
A quick bit of background: For decades, health officials and advocates have been concerned about the overuse of antibiotics. The more you use an antibiotic, the more quickly bacteria resistant to…