Antibiotic Resistant Staph Infections 663
LinuxGeek8 writes "There's a news update on a previous article about the first case of antibiotic resistant staph infections. The woman who has the infection is being kept up to 6 months in an isolation room. She is taking an antibiotic that is working, after many others did not.
"In the scheme of public health threats, this has to rank close to the top," David Ropeik, director of risk communication at the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis, said of antibiotic resistance."
Poor fellow.... (Score:5, Funny)
Suddenly I realize that I am not having such a bad day after all.
Re:Poor fellow.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Poor fellow.... (Score:3, Informative)
Second point is that 400,000 cases of staph are recorded in the US alone each year, and about a quarter die. Why, oh why, was the media here so up in the air about the 17 or so deaths from West Nile Virus that affected pretty much only the infantile and elderly, and not concentrating on something like this that is close to breaking 6 digits of death each year? Perhaps their priorities are a bit backwards.
"hey mom" (Score:5, Funny)
Re:"hey mom" (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, "Hey, Mom, thanks for taking me to the pediatrician for antibitoics every time I got the sniffles," is another matter, entirely.
Re:"hey mom" (Score:5, Informative)
One word: Triclosan.
This is an antibacterial agent commonly used in all sorts of consumer products including deodorant soaps. If it's for your body and labeled "antibacterial" check the ingredients. It probably has triclosan. While it is certainly not an antibiotic per se, bacteria can grow resistant to it, producing more virulent strains. See here [kidsource.com] for a good discussion.
A recent article (too lazy to google again) recently suggested antibacterial and regular soaps do an equally good job of cleaning you of bugs anyway.
Re:"hey mom" (Score:5, Interesting)
you should actually use it more like twice a week. (a full body lather and scrub that is) even then it may be too much.
and you should rarely use harsh soaps on your face. I ahve a friend who is always buying "anti-oil this" and other crap products and special soaps for her face. She claims that she needs them because she has really oily skin. and that she needs to wash with it every day. She washes her face in the morning - and before she goes to bed. I told her that the reason she is so oily is because she is using that crap. That what happens is the soaps wash off the natural oils and bacteria that your skin is *supposed* to have on it. But since she uses this toxic stripping soap on her face all the time - it causes her skin to over oil in attempts to compensate. The only time she should actually use soap on her face and whole body is when its actually dirty.
For 99% of the time you can use a *hot* shower and a *hot* washcloth on your face and skin. This will get rid of most anything. you dont need to use soap on your face and body every time you get wet. its bad for you. the *only* reason they tell you to do this is to get you to buy worthless products.
The cosmetics industry is a sham. Those designer shampoo (hence the name) products you buy use about 3 cents worth of the standard detergent Sodium Lauryle Sulfate. (which some people think cuases cancer - I have no idea if it does, I just know it gives me dandruff so i stay away from it)
All the other ingredients in shampoos and conditioner are mostly garbage...
Anyway - the point is that you have bacteria on your skin that your body *needs* and you should not use soap very often. Just use hot steaming wash clothes to wash your face.
I have perfect skin, no oil and never any zits, and no BO. I almost never use soap. I use soap when I am actually DIRTY - like after paintball for example.
The bacteria on your skin and the oils you produce will typically be in balance - unless you are doing activities that cause a lot of sweating in a dirty environment - or you dont shower every single day - then you dont need soap.
(but you should wash your hands with soap - even though the crappy detergents ruin your skin)
And you should avoid antibiotics like the plague - unless you actually have the plague, then they are a good thing (TM)
(seriously - take these as rarely as ever possible)
Re:"hey mom" (Score:3)
Re:"hey mom" (Score:5, Funny)
You're French, aren't you?
Re:"hey mom" (Score:3, Interesting)
You don't need anti-bacterial soap to cleanse yourself of bacteria. Normal soap makes your skin SLIPPERY enough that a good rinse sends all the bacteria down the drain. Most research indicates that using any anti-bacterial products in your home is unneccessary. Normal soap and detergent will keep you and your home clean.
Anti-bacterial products can produce bacteria that are resitant to the anti-bacterial ingredient.
It has also been shown that kids that grow up in sterile homes (mom or dad use lots of anti-bacterial soap everywhere, every day) tend to get more infections once they get to school age as their immune system hasn't had to develop resistance to normal environmental bacteria (like you find at school).
Obviiously (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Obviiously (Score:4, Funny)
Actually, we have met it occasionally, but normally it posts as an AC. Don't forget to say hi to Steve, the thing that lives on the crap in your keyboard, for me.
And yes, for my sugar-starved brain, this is humour. And for the brain-starved mods, this is not troll nor flame, though perhaps flaming trolls could clean his bathroom...
obsessive-compulsive (Score:5, Informative)
Most bacteriocides that you'd be willing to put on your skin take a while to work, more time than you'd have the soap on. The most effective treatment is a good scrub, which physically scrapes the bacteria away -- not glamorous but effective. Most of us do a lousy job at handwashing -- it needs to be thorough and repeated during the day, as the bacteria multiply on your skin -- myself included, and I have two of those little disease vectors called "children."
Only 40% of people wash their hands exiting public restrooms, one study showed (imagine being the data-taker); the problem there being the encouragement of the fecal-oral route of disease transmission from the non-handwasher to others. I'll let you visualize what fecal-oral involves. So be a good citizen and lather up.
Oh, and the next time the press reports someone getting sick from beef tainted with E. coli, note that "coli" means colon, where these bacteria were discovered. These E. coli come from careless slaughtering practices and, stated frankly, mean that "there's manure in the meat." (quoting the muckraking author of the excellent Fast Food Nation)
It's a microbe's world after all.
Re:obsessive-compulsive (Score:3)
While I don't think you mean to blame your children, it's really not their fault.
Last year, my kids were homeschooled, and for that entire year, nobody in my family got sick. Not one cold, not one flu, nothing.
This year, we've had our kids back in public school, and we've already had one stomach flu and one cold work it's way through. In two short months.
In previous years, we've had nastiness like chicken pox, measles, and. . . head lice!! All picked up from other kids at public school.
Why do parents send their sick kids to school so they can infect other kids, and spread diseases to their parents?
I personally blame the public school system for head lice. They could DO something about that. But with most families having BOTH parents working, kids can't take a sick day without making one of the parents take a sick day. So the parents send the kids to school in most cases, unless the kid's physically unable to prop themselves up in their desk. So mainly, I'm blaming the crappy labor standards that discourage parents from taking sick days for their kids. And I'm blaming crappy "modern industrialism" for eroding wages to the point where two adults MUST work in a family in order to maintain an average standard of living.
Homeschooling and having my wife stay at home allowed our family incredible freedom, for vacations, etc. But my getting laid off and taking a job where I now make about 2/3 what I was making, changed that situation.
Re:"hey mom" (Score:5, Informative)
Now, to the "Antibacterial Soap"
What gives "Antibacterial" soap it's antibacterial property is mainly the molecular structure of the soap. It is lipophilic detergent, which impedes the cell membrane (of the bacterium), essentially stopping it from passing water either way (study the Fluid Mosaic Model to understand cell membranes).
I would imagine that olive oil has as much "antibacterial" properties as a grocery store "antibacterial" soap; so would a soap made from animal fat for that matter.
My understanding is that what makes Triclosan so special is, it simplifies (economizes) the manufacturing process, because it is less expensive to formulate triclosan than the alternatives with similar properties. I'm not trying to say that it doesn't kill bacteria -- it DOES kill bacteria, but the WAY it kills them is through a simple physical process.
I wonder if the patent has had any relationship to the sudden adoption of this chem in practically every personal care product on the shelf?
decimal is to blame (Score:2, Funny)
It does rank up there.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Then there's some research suggesting that feeding antibiotics to animals isn't such a great idea either since all the nasties associated with that can be ingested later by humans. Try googling for the info [google.com]
Re:It does rank up there.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It does rank up there.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Amen. I've actually gotten to the point where I get angry when I hear my mother-in-law tell my wife to go get some antibiotics because she has a cold. I've tried calmly explaining to her that antibiotics don't do anything to help a cold, but she's so used to years of doctors prescribing them for such that she can't get over it.
I routinely suffer from sinusitis twice a year (when I turn on the heat and when I turn on the AC), so getting rid of infections is a big deal for me. I am not a doctor, but for the past couple years I've managed to completely avoid antibiotics. Instead, I take Echinacea and Goldenseal three times a day until the infection goes away. I've found that it's usually just about as effective as antibiotics, and since it's still my body that's doing all the work, there's no added fear of adaptation. Of course, this remedy wouldn't work if my immune system were in really bad shape.
Re:It does rank up there.... (Score:3, Funny)
No, no, no. If you burn the body, all you'll be doing is creating fire resistant strains of bacteria. Pretty soon there will be strains of bacteria that can survive in bodies full of burning antibiotics, and then where will we be?
DNA Theft (Score:3, Interesting)
For all you pathology people, is this a common method for bugs, or is it limited to a few families?
-Cyc
Re:DNA Theft (Score:5, Informative)
Re:DNA Theft (Score:5, Informative)
Re:DNA Theft (Score:5, Funny)
Could the indigenous bacteria sue for intellectual property theft?
What if a bacterium steals patented DNA? Do the pharmaceutical companies have a case against it?
those poor pill pharms (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:those poor pill pharms (Score:5, Interesting)
Does that mean we will be cyborgs? Kind of I guess
I wonder how much it will cost and how much control software companies will have over us then?
Re:those poor pill pharms (Score:3, Funny)
Re:those poor pill pharms (Score:3, Informative)
It's pretty rare that any human invention outdoes mother nature.
Cheers.
all the more reason (Score:5, Funny)
Re:all the more reason (Score:5, Insightful)
Dirt is good for you (Score:5, Interesting)
Like allergies (Score:5, Interesting)
After toughing it out in clean fresh air, coupled with visits to the chickens in the barn, etc, most of my animal allergies went away. I was still allergic to cats, but got rid of that after we got three of the shedding creatures.
In reverse cases, sometimes the allergies chip away at the immune system, causing gradually increasing sickness. But in most cases I've heard of, low exposure over time builds tolerence.
*Note: That's low exposure, stuffing a kid with allergies in a house of 50 cats is probably not recommended in the short run...
this is disturbing. (Score:5, Funny)
Geeks outliving everybody else? (Score:3, Funny)
Resistance or Darwinism? (Score:5, Interesting)
Neither actually (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Resistance or Darwinism? (Score:5, Interesting)
Bacteria are very unlike higher animals. Bacteria aren't restricted to darwinian evolution. They sometimes just grab genes from things they eat and incorporate them into their structure. Some bacteria even take the presence of antibiotics as a sign to spew out copies of their drug-resistant genes.. such bacteria 'remember' that those genes helped them out, and share the wealth when they are attacked. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are an obscenely dangerous threat.
See Bruce Sterling's excellent article, Bitter Resistance [eff.org] for far more information than you wanted to know about drug resistance in bacteria.
Re:Resistance or Darwinism? (Score:4, Insightful)
This is still Darwinian Evolution. After all, Darwin didn't know about genes at all - and certainly not DNA! How the genomic change occurs is not an issue with Darwinian Evolution. Darwin's insight (others had this too, btw) was how natural selection worked to produce variations and new species.
Genomes change for in all sorts of ways. Mutation is one. Extremely important is gene exchange - typically sexual reproduction. This is very powerful or the high costs of it (please, no bad jokes) wouldn't be tolerated by natural selection. There are other mechanisms... bacteria can simply pick up DNA that is floating around in their environment - especially plasmids. Viruses can cause germ line changes - introducing new genes or modifying existing ones.
Its more common than you think (Score:5, Interesting)
I used to work in a hospital and we had a lot of patients with MRSA (Multiple Resistance to Strains of Antibiotics) related issues. These patients were kept isolated and treated until the MRSA infection was cleared then they could be operated on.
Quite often these bugs not dangerous until a person gets sick then they can be fatal.
This is why people should not use antibiotics for viral infections (such as the common cold) and why if you do have to use anti-biotics you should take all the pills as prescribed until they are done.
MRSA actually means.. (Score:5, Interesting)
MRSA actually means Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus.
Now we have VRSA. Vancomycin Resistant Staphyloccocus Aureus.
There are no "wonder drugs" in the pipeline. We're reaching the end of the road for antibiotics. It won't be sudden, but it will happen.
Many diseases we currently think of as relatively trivial are going to become real killers again. Millions of people are going to die.
It won't be the young, fit and healthy as much as the very young and the very old.
But let's keep feeding the antibiotics to farm animals. It makes them more profitable. Got a slight viral cold? Demand antibiotics. It's your right.
It's the tragedy of the commons again.
Crazy question for microbiologists: Is it possible that resistance to a specific antibiotic costs an organism enough that it could no longer out-compete it's non-resistant cousins? Would it be worth infecting someone who has a resistant strain with a non-resistant strain in the hope that the non-resistant one will 'win'? Then, (if the patient still lives), treat that with antibiotics?
Or are you going to get so much genetic transfer that it's worse than dangerous?
Re:Its more common than you think (Score:4, Informative)
If you worked in a hospital, you obviously weren't a doctor or nurse. MRSA is Methicillin Resistant Staph(ylococcus) Aureus--a bacterial strain that is resistant to one of the antibiotic 'big guns' methicillin.
There are few choices of antibiotics left to treat it (for example, vancomycin--though vancomycin resistant staph was observed recently, IIRC). A patient with MRSA is unlikely to survive the trauma of surgery coupled with a serious infection, because the drugs used to treat MRSA are often not friendly in their side effects.
It just goes to show.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:It just goes to show.. (Score:3, Interesting)
On one hand, advanced medical science can cure the world... on the other... it can make everybody so weak that they would die from a untreated cold in a matter of hours...
maybe genetic engineering can restore the strength that the human race once had...
Gimme some anti-virals... (Score:3, Informative)
Not bloody likely. Though maybe if more doctors took the approach that was taken at the Olympic Village in Salt Lake City [idsociety.org], the over-use of anti-biotics might start to decline. Not many doctors have that kind of captive audience, though.
It's not a matter of scaring people away from antibiotics, it's a matter of giving them something that actually might work, instead of just giving them something to get them out of the office...
A grain of salt (Score:5, Interesting)
There is good evidence anitbiotics are overprescribed and, much worse, misused by the public (always always finish your course of antibiotic correctly, the last mile really is important even though you may feel fine -- it sounds preachy but it's true). But this is a different issue; the super-bacteria appear in hospital setting where doctors are doing their utmost to fight infection. Vancomycin is still pretty nuclear stuff.
I wish I had a good cite handy, but I can't dredge one up offhand; do take a look if you're interested, at NIH and CDC for starters. IMHO the superbacteria are kind of like the killer bees, long heralded but never quite arriving in force. I don't mean to make light of the potential trouble; it's just not here yet, and won't for a while, and it pales in contrast to staggering public health problems we have like HIV and smoking and unaffordable prescriptions and even West Nile virus. When you hear reports in terms of infections per 100,000 people, as opposed to isolated case studies, take heed. For now it merely makes for good copy, over and over.
"I'm not a doctor but I play one onlin."
Re:A grain of salt (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, that's the hope, that somehow the antibiotic-resistant genes will prove detrimental to the bacteria in the absence of the specific antibiotic. If a vancomycin-resistant staph bug is 10% less efficient at metabolism or replication, then there might be a degree to which the problem becomes self-limiting. This is also the idea behind letting older antibiotics 'rest' for awhile, in the hope that, in the absence of the antibiotics, the wild population will mutate back to the more efficient non-resistant configuration.
I suspect that's not a terribly sturdy reed to pin one's hopes on, though. I'd again recommend Bruce Sterling's Bitter Resistance [eff.org] column for more on this.
How long until AIDS swaps genes? (Score:5, Interesting)
I think the main problem with infections and diseases becoming more resistant to treatment lies partly in a lot of people failing to use the medicine for the required amount of time. I had a skin fungus that kept coming back because everytime I cound't see it anymore, I would quit spraying the medicine on it. After a few times of this, the medicine was no longer effective and I had to get some much stronger (and much more costly) medicine to combat the problem. Using antibiotics for a short while until the problem is apparently gone and then stopping, may allow whatever it is that is being treated to adapt to the treatments. Then it gets spread to someone else and the process repeats itself until eventually, we have no way to stop even common ailments.
Re:How long until AIDS swaps genes? (Score:4, Informative)
The chief engine of genetic change in viruses is caused by antigen drift via mutation. This is due to the error-prone nature of virus replication.
However, drug resistance is found in viruses. AIDS has shown resistance to some of the early retrotranscriptase inhibitors (AZT), not due to gene-swapping, but good old fashioned natural selection.
Re:How long until AIDS swaps genes? (Score:3, Interesting)
And the creationists will say? (Score:5, Funny)
"Well kids you see God just recently gave the staph bacteria a gracious gift; antibiotic resistance. Of course staph didn't *evolve* this resistance since theres no such thing as evolution, children.
We just have to wonder at Gods great plan where he makes these changes in living things just to make life harder for us God fearing folk. Praise the lord.
Ok now children all lne up for your lobotomy operations; you won't be needing independent thought with God looking after things."
Re:And the creationists will say? (Score:5, Informative)
This ignores that micro and macro are in reality the same thing to educated people, of course.
Re:And the creationists will say? (Score:3, Interesting)
You are correct on micro/macro.
And, it's not that it's "Against God's Plan" -- it's that it simply is conjecture that didn't happen.
The better example is the dog born with 5 legs. Some would say this could be a transitional form that if things were right could lead to a new breed of super dog. We see a dog flopping around looking embarrassed because it has a serious problem.
The main issue is that there should be tranisitional forms all around us -- and that evolution should be observed. Peppered moths are nursery stories and have little correspondance to anything. I could throw away all my yellow sheets of paper, but that wouldn't make my white paper turn into monkeys.
Mutations and diseases are not part of God's Plan. They are the result of choosing another plan.
Antibiotics not the only option (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Antibiotics not the only option (Score:3, Interesting)
In particular one thing I remember was that for some types of phage, you had to feed them, I think raw meat was a good choice. The viruses actually ate the meat. Phages have the advantage of being as adaptable as the bacteria however.
What about nanotech? I wonder if by the point that antibiotic resistant bacteria becomes a problem whether we'll have sufficiently advanced nanotechnology to make our own killer molecules.
Re:Antibiotics not the only option (Score:3, Interesting)
Just when you think (Score:5, Funny)
Not the first time. (Score:5, Interesting)
All I'm sayin' is that I'm funneling down the vitamin C like Pez.
phage therapy (Score:5, Informative)
What's the alternative? Virtually every species of bacteria has one or more virus species that have evolved to prey on it. These bacteriophage (or phage for short) can sometimes be used as treatment for bacterial infection. They were supposedly the Next Big Thing about a century ago, before antibiotics stole the show. Now there is renewed interest in this approach. There was also a recent development of a technique using only a phage-produced enzyme to fight bacterial infections.
Google "phage therapy" or "phage enzyme" for some good reading on the subject.
Re:phage therapy (Score:3, Insightful)
Phages therapy still faces the development of resistance. Natural selection is a very powerful process, and various forms of gene exchange among bacteria makes it happen quite quickly.
Phages also are likely to be attacked by the human immune system (they are, after all, foreign viruses). Thus a lot of phages that work well in vitro don't do well in vivo.
However, they are an additional weapon against bacteria, and there are now some western companies that are combining the long Soviet experience with them with western venture capital and well equipped laboratories.
At some point, on might suppose that bacteria would run out of resistance strategies. Most changes to cause resistance come at some cost - which is why resistance genes will often fade away without the presence of antibiotics. Add up enough of these changes and you may produce bacteria that are not very viable. OTOH you may produce bugzilla!
Antibiotic resistance (Score:5, Informative)
Some Thoughts from Med School (Score:5, Informative)
Here's some suggestions to help you avoid these problems:
1) Most MDR (multidrug resistant) bugs are found in hospitals (med word: nosocomial). You're relatively safe from this stuff when you're out in the community.
2) TAKE ALL OF YOUR ANTIBIOTICS AS PRESCRIBED. Taking just enough to feel better is the worst idea ever - all the bugs left have now been genetically selected for greater resistance.
3) If the doc says you don't need an antibiotic, don't push too hard - ABs can cause serious side effects and drug resistance in YOU. Remeber - a normal health human has 10x more bacteria than they do human cells - most bacteria are there to help!!!
Re:Some Thoughts from Med School (Score:3, Informative)
In many third world countries, antibiotics are available by the pill. People take them until they feel better or can't afford any more.
Without significant education (and perhaps changes in incentives), this will lead to widespread resistance, without invoking first worlder's ignoring their doctors' adivce or agricultural use of antibiotics.
In addition, certain subcultures in the US have similar problems. One of the scariest bugs out there (far scarier than MRSA) is multi-drug resistant tuberculosis. TB is common among street people, due to their lifestyle. Unfortunately, the same psychopathologies that lead to them being homeless also lead to failure to follow proper antibiotic treatment regimes. For this reason, states are now starting to reinstate the process of forced treatment - in confinement if necessary.
If you have TB and you don't follow the treatment protocols, you can be confined to a treatment facility until the TB is cleared (which may be never if it is highly resistant).
Making this even worse is that many of the street people are also heroin addicts, and contract AIDS. Then we have a paradise for the TB - weakened immune system in a person who doesn't adhere to proper antibiotic use.
It is also spreading very rapidly in Russian prisons, btw, and is also a major killer in the third world.
The reason TB is so scary is that it is a very serious disease (often fatal) in a healthy person, and it is spread through the air. You can catch it on a bus or walking down the street. Most TB is resistant to some antibiotics, but curable by a (nasty) cocktail of other antibiotics.
Before the development of Streptomycin, TB was common in the United States. Many people spent the last months or years of their shortened lives in TB Sanitoria, often experiencing all sorts of ghastly treatment.
SA (Score:5, Interesting)
With that said, past few years been using colloidal silver on external wounds/infections, works quite well. I was skeptical at first until I tried it. Still using it when needed. Much better than any store bought/prescription antibio cream I ever tried. The only bummer is, it's very inexpensive. You can make it yourself easily or buy it cheaply pre-made, variety of places. People have this ingrained almost religious belief that stuff has to cost a lot of money and come from the medical deity to be effective. (Almost like the almost religious belief that software has to come from an expensive closed source place to be any good). You don't get that "full" satisfaction of paying mucho dinero for it so you know it'll work, like big pharmco products.
Yes, I know there are some issues with taking it orally by the 55 gallon drum, I'm not recommending that at all, but for some reason those silver particles will sure kill the cooties. No idea if effective or not on SA, but given that the medcos are stumped, well????
Not to be construed as medical advice, closed track, illegal where void and like that there.
FYI: Colloidial Silver Not So Good ... (Score:5, Informative)
And for my own favorite test, just like chiropractric, colloidal silver users make some wide, sweeping, and exagerated claims [colloidal-silver.com] for what silver "can cure". I mean crap, that's a huge list of things it will cure or alleviate. You just have to wonder when you see that many claims of a miracle medicine/tonic.
Argyria: I'm blue, ab a dee ab a dye... (Score:4, Informative)
Yeah, kinda like Hemlock is natural.
Check out these links before you hit the natural foods store:
Rosemary Jacob's Argyria Pages [together.net] -- her skin is a fetching shade of blue-grey, somewhat like the robot on Futurama.
Politician turns blue from drinking 'health' solution [ananova.com] -- the Libertarian US Senate candidate from Montana would have had the distinction, if elected, of being the only Blue member of Congress. (I'm a Green [txgreens.org], myself).
Follow your doctor's recommendations! (Score:4, Informative)
The other point I've seen is that you should take your doctor's advice- some people will demand the doctor prescribe antibiotics for any little cold or sniffle they get. This, of course, won't do a bit of good, since colds and flus are caused by viruses, and antibiotics only work on bacteria.
So the prescription won't do any good, but it won't harm the patient either- so the doctor gives in and writes the prescription, just to get the patient to shut up. (okay, so it's partially the doctor's fault too)
But the antibiotics in the system will give the body's native bacterial flora a chance to develop resistance, and those little bugs have a nasty way of passing genes back and forth... (if you don't believe me Google for bacterial conjugation)
Precursor to doom. Triclosan (Score:3, Informative)
(VERY common antibacterial agent/cancerogenic) has to appear in...
toothpaste [colgatetotal.com],
mouthwash,
cleansers,
soaps,
toothbrushes,
dishwashing detergents,
hand lotions,
Anti-Bacterial Toilet Seat Lifter, [cyberbabymall.com]
Anti-Bacterial Chew Toys!? [4t.com]
Apparently the germs don't care about the new products we've tried to make "clean" with Triclosan.....
because they've already beaten it. [pslgroup.com]
Oh, and what do the experts think?
Center for Disease Control's view of things [cdc.gov]
ST. JUDE RESEARCH TEAM [131.104.232.9]
DISCOVERS A TRICLOSAN-RESISTANT ENZYME IN PATHOGENIC BACTERIA
"A Swedish study [nyteknik.se] found triclosan in
"the breast milk of three out of five lactating women tested..." [theage.com.au]
Yet more... [mpt.org]
I for one, will be exercising my immune system with daily exposure to germs. Do your part, get dirty.
Contaminate their gene pool (Score:3, Interesting)
If we contaminate their system enough would the resistant population decrease?
Inevitable, worryingly (Score:4, Insightful)
This is rather worrying, especially when you think that the main cause of all this resistance buildup is GPs prescribing antibiotics copiously (at the behest of patients, true, but what's wrong with giving placebos? Probably will get them lawsuits for misleading the patients, hmm) and commercial farming where antibiotics are used liberally to stock up the animals..
Grapefruit Seed Extract - the natural alternative (Score:3, Informative)
The latest all natural fad being used as an anti-microbial is "Grapefruit Seed Extract" (commonly called GSE).
I discovered it when it was recommended to me for a nasty GI virus that wouldn't go away by normal starvation. Killed the sucker right off. As a nursing student I will be trying to bring this into any hospital I eventually work for.
Hopefully, and I don't see why not, it will work against antibiotic resistant bacteria and viruses.
A good overview [chisuk.org.uk]
Here's a good summary from another site:
Grapefruit seed extract is derived from the bioflavonoids found in the seed and pulp. Its anti-germicide action has shown a growth-inhibiting effect on bacteria, fungi, parasites, and viruses in several in vitro studies. The effectiveness of grapefruit seeds was discovered accidentally by a doctor, who noticed that the seeds did not decompose in his compost file. Further examination revealed that the grapefruit seeds killed any microorganism that tried to decompose it. Laboratory studies have shown it to be effective in inhibiting bacteria such as Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Grapefruit seed extract has been formulated by a number of manufacturers for various uses, including an internal bactericide, water disinfectant, skin cleanser, and first-aid spray. Grapefruit seed extract is also a treatment for house pets and livestock that may be susceptible to bacterial infections from a variety of sources.
Re:Grapefruit Seed Extract - the natural alternati (Score:3, Interesting)
However, you might look into apple seeds. When I was a kid, I discovered that a peeled and crushed apple seed held against a canker sore for 10 minutes would cause very rapid healing in 90% of cases. Maybe a cyanide compound of some sort, killing a specific pathogen, I dunno (never bothered to pursue it, no idea if anyone's researched it).
Re:Grapefruit Seed Extract - the natural alternati (Score:3, Insightful)
Please don't. I'm serious.
As someone with medical training, you should KNOW that most diseases go away by themselves and there's no substitute for double-blind, placebo controlled studies to ascertain the efficacy of a given treatment. Please don't rip off poor people in their time of need by sending them to GNC to pay lots of money for various things that just don't work, and in some cases kill.
Note that no links to peer-reviewed articles exist on the link you provide. Just assertions who all curiously use the commercial name of the product. Look at the broad range of things it claims to cure...missing only "the vapors" and "consumption" to be pure snake oil.
A quick check of the FDA, however, reveals that these makers haven't bothered to put it to the test of actually trying to show it cures people instead of making outrageous claims:
first letter [fda.gov]
a href="http://www.fda.gov/cder/warn/cyber/cyber200
And since the stuff you'll be foisting off on suffering, desperate people is unregulated, you won't even know that the brand they buy actually contains the advertised product, nor that it's safe.
Hell, I don't know exactly why switching everyone in the middle east to purple robes wouldn't bring peace, except that nobody's shown even a correlation between purple-robe-wearing and sudden elimination of religious fanaticism (though it'd be fun to try on Pat Robertson in a study). Similarly, since no one has actually shown that the concoction you ingested (if it actually contained what its maker claims it did) had anything to do with your improvement. It's not as if all your white blood cells up and died, leaving it as the only thing between you and death.
Please, go to pharmacy school if not getting a full MD before prescribing drugs, because that's exactly what you'll be doing if you recommend it to anyone.
And that's just plain wrong.
Another reason why GMO antibiores markers is bad (Score:5, Insightful)
Vancomycin-resistant staph is really bad news. Vancomycin was the last line of defense among antibiotics that have been tested. Its successors are very recent and might have side effects that haven't been detected yet. Not to mention that they are very expensive.
That's one more reason why it's a bad idea to use antibiotic resistance genes as selection markers in genetically modified organisms (GMOs). The process goes like this: A researcher wants to splice, say, a sheep's wool-producing skin gene into common corn so that the GM corn will have wooly fibers (cheaper wool, great!). The researcher prepares thousand of modified cell cultures. The gene splicing has succeeded in only a small percentage of them. How does he select the cells with the spliced gene? Easy: He also splices another gene, coding for antibioresistance (ABR), and looks for its signature in the Petri dishes, using standard reagents.
Then when the wooly corn is marketed, all its cells carry the same ABR gene. Eat the corn, and the bacteria in your guts get a chance to acquire the ABR gene from exposure to it. Then you get sick. The doctor prescribes antibiotics. All the E. Coli in your guts are killed, except the infinitesimal fraction that acquired this ANR gene. Then the surviving fraction repopulates your intestine. All your E. Coli population is now ABR. They will transmit the gene to some pathogene sooner or later.
Understand me, I don't really think that GMO are evil. Some GMO are actually very good ideas. The problem is that implementation of the idea with selection through ABR is very dangerous. Look it up for yourself. [google.com]
Non-antibiotic staph cure (Score:5, Interesting)
I and many others have cured ourselves without antibiotics, and I want to tell you how. This by no means qualifies as official medical information, it's just what happened.
Disclaimer: I am not a doctor and this is not a scientific analysis. This is just my story. It worked for me. If you have staph you should seek medical attention immediately. It's no joke, and even the doctors may not be able to help you.
OK, if you have a weak stomach, stop reading now.
First I should explain how staph attacks you, typically. Usually what happens is that you get a nick on your lower leg, and it just won't heal. Soon you have a festering infection which grows rapidly. It's amazingly efficient and agressive. It eats a sizable hole in your leg, and then starts to spread. You start getting pimples on other parts of your body which quickly grow and soon your are covered with round, dime or quarter-sized oozing festering holes. It's pretty horrifying. If you don't do something about it, you will end up with serious problems.
I was infected for a couple of months, but I recovered without antibiotics, and many others have by using similar techniques. I have thought about the whole experience a lot, and I think I can identify the core elements of a successful staph cure. These elements can be divided into two main categories. First, you must have some kind of internal defense to prevent the spread of the staph through the bloodstream and the intercellular fluid. In the usual cure this is done by antibiotics, but these are losing their effectiveness. But fortunately your body comes equipped with an immune system for this purpose, but you must do everything you can to strengthen it and give it the advantage over the bacteria. Secondly, you must have some sort of external attack. This is the really horrible part. The staph burrows under the dead flesh it kills, making it extremely difficult to attack from the outside.
Internal Defense
External attack
This can be divided into two phases. In the first phase, the staph colony is expanding into the flesh around it, and your attack must be very aggressive. In the second phase, your body has isolated the colony and built a membranous wall around it. Then the treatment must be very gentle.
Phase one; Expanders:
During this phase, I think the wounds should be left open. This is to encourage them to ooze pus, which is actually a good thing because it establishes an outward flow of fluid and slows the staph down. The objective of this phase is to slow the growth of the colony enough for your body to build a membranous wall around it, isolating the infection from the intercellular fluid and allowing the healing process to begin.
Phase 2; Contractors:
You will know you have entered this phase when you stop finding so much dead flesh, and the colony slows its growth. At this point you build a wall around the infection, and within a couple of days the remaining dead flesh outside the wall should come off easily, without extensive scrubbing. Now you must change your approach:
Gradually the wound will begin to shrink. You must stick with the treatment rigorously and stick to the diet mercelessly. The cases that go on and on are the ones where the person simply cannot force themself to avoid sugar, alcohol and cigarettes, and just keep getting new infections.
Also, a note about clenliness. It's really important. You must clean and disinfect your entire environment completely all the time, especially your clothes and bedding. Do lots of laundry, take lots of showers, use chlorine liberally.
Well, that about covers it. After two months of this horrible daily torture, I finally got a grip on my sugar consumption, cured my last big sore, and recovered. I have big scars on my legs to tell the tale, but I'm actually grateful for the experience. It builds a hell of a lot of will power, which is useful stuff.
Good luck, and may the Force be with you.
Maggots! (Score:3, Informative)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/1907065.stm
To help reduce a cold/viral infection... (Score:3, Informative)
1. Inhalation of steam and an antiseptic agent.
Eucalyptus oil or Tea Tree oil in water, then heated/boiled is a great way to kill off bugs in the air. Very good for throat/nasal infections. Scented burners are good value for this.
2. Acidic foods/liquids.
This includes oranges, lemons, apples, grapefruit and tomato, including juices of those. Vinegar, particularly cider and malt vinegar, can be good if used as a mouth wash/gargle or ingested (if you can). Salt is also a good thing to ingest when ill, but as always, too much is bad for you. Yes, I am advocating salt'n'vinegar potato chips here. *grin*
3. Mouth washes.
Cider and malt vinegar work well, as does salt water. Iodine throat wash (commonly found under the "Betadine" brand) is also very good, but don't swallow it. Listerine and other mouth washes (for teeth care/plaque) are also good value. And brush your teeth too.
4. Suppliments/herbal treatments.
Echinacea, and other herbal suppliments can help, though be warned that some may have bad or deadly side affects for some people. Ginger is used lots in Chinese medicine, and is apparently quite good for helping someone overcome a cold, but some people are allergic to it. Vitamin suppliments are also good if you haven't been eating right, or can't keep a lot of food down.
5. Fluids.
The kidneys are a primary place for a virus to be flushed from the human body. Don't drink too much though, as it is possible to kill yourself from taking too much fluids.
6. Regular wash/shower.
Sweat is another way for fluids to leave the body, and regular washing helps remove some viruses.
This is not a definitive list. But I'm hoping someone out there might find it useful. There are a lot of NATURAL ways to fight a cold. The goal is to help out the body. If that is by helping to remove the virus or most of the things the body fights against on a regular basis (air-born contaminants, throat bourne virii, etc), then you body will have more resources to chuck at other areas. Just think of the whole thing as a resource based game, where you are the resource. Remember though that too much of something can be bad though, so balance things out.
A few facts (Score:5, Informative)
MRSA strains with intermediate resistance to vancomycin have been seen in many parts of the world since 1996, and patients certainly have died as as result of vancomycin treatment failure. However, these perhaps weren't so scary as the resistance mechanism was a very thick cell wall which made these strains very slow growing and not so viable in the absence of vancomycin.
What's new is that MRSA strains have now emerged with high-level vancomycin-resistance and this happened by acquistion of the vancomycin-resistance gene (vanA) from VRE. That this was possible was shown in the lab in 1992, but the first time it's been seen in patients was this year. The two reports of Vancomycin-resistant MRSA in the U.S. can be found in the CDC's newsletter:
MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2002 Oct 11;51(40):902
MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2002 Jul 5;51(26):565-7
How scary is it? Until recently MRSA has been almost exclusively a hospital pathogen, so it's pretty scary if you're a hospital patient with a lot of tubes sticking into you which alow the bugs to get in and cause infections, but if you're well it's not a big threat (doctors and nurses can carry MRSA, but generally they don't develop infections despite a lot of exposure). There have been reports recently of strains of MRSA that do spread well in the community, and that can cause serious infections amongst essentially healthy people. However, these have not been multiply-resistant strains, and really these are no worse than virulent strains of normal S. aureus which have been round for millions of years. The message is, if you're well, don't rush out and buy cipro (this will only helps MSRA as the bugs are resistant to it), and if you're ill, keep away from hospitals.
Just to rebut a few other comments: over-prescribing of antibiotics probably is very important for encouraging drug-resistantce, but even correct of use of antibiotics will lead to some resistance. Use of antibiotics in animal feed can't really be blamed in this case, as drugs of the same class as vancomycin (glycopeptides) have not been used in animal feed in the US, though they have in Europe. They've probably played a significant role in VRE transmission in humans in some European countries, but in the U.S. hospital prescribing of this and other antibiotics have probably been the driving force.
This was predicted in Biblical times (Score:3, Funny)
"Thy rod and thy staph shall come for thee."
Clearly, the rod is the bacillus bacterium responsible for Anthrax, and the staph is the aureus.
Re:Well that sucks.. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Well that sucks.. (Score:3, Interesting)
or plague (Score:5, Insightful)
Heck, with things like this developing its a wonder anti-evolutionist 'creation science' people can show their faces in public!
It helps to read the article (Score:5, Informative)
Re:It helps to read the article (Score:4, Funny)
Oh great, ANOTHER reason why I picked the wrong day to start using heroin.
welcome to denial (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It helps to read the article (Score:5, Interesting)
Along with extremely high antibiotic usage in the meat industry, there's also anti-bacterial soaps, drug-hoarding of precriptions, not finishing a prescription, and the hospital setting itself, that provides a wonderfull proving ground for infections.
Some friends of mine work in medicine, and this is a big topic for them. And us soon, I guess.
Re:It helps to read the article (Score:3, Informative)
Microbiology shows that if you supress a microbiological infection to the point where the body takes care of it it's self (not finishing a perscription) you completely kill the colony and there is ZERO chance of a mutation. the only way you can get a mutation to compensate for anti-biotics is by carefully dosing a colony and stopping just befoer you kill them all and keep this up until you start getting iterations of the strain that starts showing resistance.. unfortunately you need to keep the slightly kill-regrow cycle as it takes a few more generations to get the mutation to stick. Then you have to worry about the facts that you haven't been exposing the strain to it's normal habitat and therefore can easily become dependant on conditions during the exposure/treatment.
and that just covers one piece of the fud.... I and many others that have spent time in the microbiology field can write volumes about it.
Yes, there is a teeny tiny miniscule chance that you are right.... but is is highly unlikely... to the point that you are more in imminent danger of being killed by a chicken that was flung through the air by a maniac chicken farmer than it happening in the next 100 generations.
and done even get me started on the myth of antibiotics and food.... I cant believe that people actually believe those greenpeace idiots...
Re:And this is (Score:5, Informative)
So just use regular soap, sterilize things with alcohol or bleach, and don't eat meat (besides the antibiotics, there's all KINDS of other nasty stuff in that stuff)
Re:And this is (Score:5, Insightful)
Nearly all nutritionists will tell you that not eating meat at all is doing as much harm to you as it is doing good.
The proper advice is to avoid eating TOO MUCH meat. Even if you don't think you are eating too much red meat, you probably still are. You should never eat more red-meat than you can hold in the palm of your hand. Really, that's all you need in a single meal. Fish is an excellent food source, and turkey (or chicken when cooked properly) is also an excellent alternative to red meat.
So you can get your meat without pumping yourself full of the nasty crap that comes from it.
I myself don't even eat meat every day.
Re:And this is (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, if a lot more people become vegetarians, then you'd need to grow less vegetables!
See before you can eat meat, you need to grow plants for the cow to eat. To make enough meat to feed 1 human, the cow eats enough vegetables that could directly have fed 5 humans.
So a vegetarian requires 1/5th the vegetable production that a meat eater does.
more vegetarians == Less vegetables == less fertilisers and pestisides etc != not more
Re:And this is (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:And this is (Score:5, Informative)
Unfortunately, the answer is, "all of the above". Overprescription, failure of patients to complete the course of treatment, use of antibiotics in animal feed as a preventative and growth inducer, inappropriate self-treatment (I'd never heard of people mixing antibiotics with heroin, but that would certainly qualify), over-the-counter sales (mostly in third-world countries, but you'd be surprised at what's available at farm stores), heavy advertising by the pharmaceutical industry to encourage more sales. Every time an antibiotic is used, there is a small but finite risk of promoting antibiotic-resistance.
Re:And this is (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:And this is (Score:5, Informative)
No, think about this...
Bacteria is everywhere. It's always growing, reproducing, and constantly mutating. So, if you take a sample of any given group of bacteria, it is easy to assume they won't all be of the same breed, and even those of the same breed won't all be of the same genetic line. The fact is, being simpler lifeforms they evolve and mutate faster.
Now, let's say you manufacture a chemical that will kill bacteria "X". You take a dish full of bacteria and since they're very obviously not all the same it is highly possible that a few of those millions will be immune to your neat little chemical. You pour it in and you take a count and let's say only a few dozen live. Well guess what? When they reproduce you're left with a colony of bacterium that is immune to your neat little drug. Next time it gets a good growth pattern going, your antibiotic may not be as effective.
Fortunately, our bodies fight infections on their own, so antibiotics aren't a "kill all" type of attack, but more like a "kill most and let the body take care of the rest". For this reason it is a good idea to ALWAYS take all of your prescribed antibiotics, assuming of course you actually needed them in the first place. You are basically helping your body help it's self.
This too is a gross over-simplifaction but...
Re:And this is (Score:3, Informative)
The worst thing I've seen is a group of residents making their weekly rounds led by the senior resident, poking and prodding at each patient along the way, apparently failing to use any hand-sterilizing cream or soap in-between patients.
I am not a doctor, but I've (unfortunately) spent a lot of time in hospitals due to an ill family member's repeated surgeries, which required lengthy recovery stays. So I know this is not an unusual incident (I've observed it several times), nor is it localized (I've seen it at New York Hospital in NYC, and at Washington Hospital Center down in DC).
I've also seen the results - after some surgical wound poking and prodding by residents at New York Hospital, my relative developed a methicillin resistant staph infection. Three weeks of IV vancomycin. And it seemed to have gone away. But after being home for 3 weeks or so, her fever returned and she was re-admitted to the hospital for ANOTHER 2-3 week stay for a second course of IV vancomycin.
Furthermore, when she required surgery again 6 months later, they found latent infectious material mixed up with scar tissue and the like deep under the by-then-healed surgical wound, and she required ANOTHER round of vancomycin as she recovered from that surgery to prevent a recurrence while in a weakened state after her surgery.
The infections you get at hospitals (nosocomial infections) are NOTHING like 99.9% of the infections you might get elsewhere in the world. The fact that the hospitals use antibiotics all over the place, and then then fail to enforce strict usage of sterile procedure and in some cases just generally shitty facility cleanliness result in spreading around MRSA bacteria all over hell and high water.
Moral of the story: stay out of the hospital, and if you have to go, take charge of your own care or have a relative with you at all times. DO NOT let a doctor, nurse or anybody else touch you if you haven't seen them sterilize their hands first. It's your right as a patient, it's your health, and nobody else will look out for it.
Re:Irradiation is the answer (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Irradiation is the answer (Score:4, Funny)
Re:MRSA? (Score:3, Informative)
Sorta. You could probably call it VRSA (Vancomycin Resistant Stap... etc). It's a step up as Vanc & it's contempories are generally used to treat MRSA and there really isn't anything more powerful available. It's worrying as you get a bug that becomes almost impossible to treat (MRSA is a challenge to treat and people die but a full spectrum immune bug could be that Ace in the sleeve that the environment produces to curb the rampant expansion of humanity...)
ATBE we've pretty much come to the end of what can effectively be treated with Anitbiotics and a new approach must be found, something that has not gotten a lot of attention what with antibiotics being so effective and profitable...
You *have* to be joking (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't be an idiot. Where's the evidence (real or anecdotal) that the average guy who doesn't finish his antibiotics says to himself, "Well, golly, since evolution is just atheist propoganda, there is no reason for me to fear antibiotic resistance developing in bacteria--THEREFORE, I will now stop taking my antibiotic regime."
Don't be stupid.
Re:Why not simply perscribe 2 or more antibiotics? (Score:3, Insightful)
Contrary to what is apparently popular belief, antibiotics are not all nice and can be taken whenever you feel like it. Antibiotics can cause some of the most hideous allergic-type responses of anything on earth (like Stevens-Johnson syndrome) that are often fatal. This is pretty rare but not as rare as we'd like, and there's no way to predict when it will happen, since it can happen to you even if you've taken that medication before without a problem.
The real answer to this lies with the consumer. Don't come to the doctor and want antibiotics. In the majority of cases of upper respiratory infections, diarrhea, and other problems, antibiotics are useless. It's the subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) demands for antibiotics that make docs give antibiotics to patients in the first place rather than spend another 10 minutes explaining to a progressively more angry patient why the doctor won't "give them something to make them feel better."
Not quite. (Score:4, Informative)
* Tenover FC, Hughes JM. The challenges of emerging infectious diseases: development and spread of multiply-resistant bacterial pathogens. Journal of the American Medical Association 1996;275:300-304.
Also, we can consider this from two points of view and see why it's reasonable:
1.) bacteria can transfer genes from one to another by plasmid - a plasmid is a small circle of DNA that's not part of the bacterial genome. so one plasmid can code for resistance to antibiotic A, and another plasmid can code for resistance to antibiotic B. this modularity just from the molecular biology of bacteria makes bacteria well-equipped to deal with multiple assaults. a bacteria doesn't have to independently develop resistance, it can acquire it easily from another bacteria, mix and match etc.
2.) the nature of darwinian selection of the survivalists means that, while it is *unlikely* for any particular bacteria for develop resistance, *once* it does develop resistance, then it will likely survive and multiply under heavy antibiotic environments.