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Category Archives: legislation

December 14, 2009

Guest Q&A: Dr. Brad Spellberg and RISING PLAGUE

I’m thrilled today to present another guest blogger: Dr. Brad Spellberg, associate professor of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and author of the new book Rising Plague: The Global Threat from Deadly Bacteria and Our Dwindling Arsenal to Fight Them (Prometheus Books). This new book is important reading for anyone [...]

Written by Maryn McKenna

Also posted in IDSA, antibiotics, drug development, guest, resistance

December 1, 2009

Wednesday a.m.: Congressional briefing on antibiotics in livestock – live-tweeted!

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Folks: On Wednesday 2 December, at 9:30 a.m. EST, Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) will host a Congressional briefing about antibiotic use in food animals. As a reminder, Rep. Slaughter is an MPH and Congress’s only microbiologist, and the chief sponsor of PAMTA, the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act that proposes restricting antibiotic use [...]

Written by Maryn McKenna

Also posted in ST 398, animals, antibiotics, food

November 25, 2009

Two good reports published elsewhere

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Some holiday reading: Mike the Mad Biologist, who often blogs about MRSA, has an analysis up about the varying degrees of attention that the Senate and House healthcare reform bills give antibiotic resistance and healthcare infections And Jacob Goldstein at the Wall Street Journal’s WSJHealth blog describes and links to a program at UCLA Medical Center that [...]

Written by Maryn McKenna

Also posted in hand hygiene, media

November 23, 2009

Antibiotic misuse in animals – one example

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Via the Minneapolis Star Tribune and the excellent blog Fair Food Fight comes the story of two cows, from two Minnesota farms, that have been reprimanded by the US Food and Drug Administration for bringing cows to slaughter that turned out to have been massively overdosed with antibiotics. From the Strib: In a rare move, federal officials [...]

Written by Maryn McKenna

Also posted in animals, antibiotics, food

November 17, 2009

Antibiotic resistance: international news

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Constant readers, we’ve often talked about MRSA and other resistant pathogens as a global problem (cf. these posts for resistance issues in Europe and these for resistance around the world). But now there has been formal recognition that resistant bacteria respect no borders. On Nov. 3, the US government and the European Union signed an agreement [...]

Written by Maryn McKenna

Also posted in Europe, MRSA, international

September 30, 2009

Guest Q&A: Jeanine Thomas and World MRSA Day

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I want to introduce you all to a MRSA campaigner, Jeanine Thomas of Chicago. Jeanine — whose story will be told in SUPERBUG — is the founder of World MRSA Day, a worldwide event of activism and grieving that will take place Friday, Oct. 2. There will be simultaneous observances in the UK, and a [...]

Written by Maryn McKenna

Also posted in MRSA, global health, guest

July 14, 2009

Antibiotic overuse in animals: Obama administration comes out against

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For anyone who cares about the overuse of antibiotics in food animals, and the resistant bacteria that overuse has been shown to produce, this is important news. In testimony today, new FDA Commissioner Dr. Joshua Sharfstein announced the administration’s opposition to the use of growth promoters: sub-therapeutic doses of antibiotics used not as disease treatment, but [...]

Written by Maryn McKenna

Also posted in ST 398, animals, antibiotics, food

June 26, 2009

MRSA legislation in Congress

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Readers, on Monday, Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA, 12th District) introduced a bill: HR 2937, the MRSA Infection Prevention and Patient Protection Act. It requires: hospitals to screen all patients entering high-risk units for MRSA infection adoption of best practices including contact precautions among health care professionals to prevent MRSA’s spread within hospitals. patients testing positive for [...]

Written by Maryn McKenna

Also posted in MRSA

May 6, 2009

World MRSA Day, coming in October

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Folks, MRSA activist Jeanine Thomas, who helms the group MRSA Survivors Network and was substantially responsible for getting Illinois to pass its MRSA reporting legislation, is heading the movement to observe World MRSA Day on Oct. 2, 2009. Jeanine has been tireless in pressing for reform despite her own MRSA injuries. Please consider visiting her site [...]

Written by Maryn McKenna

Also posted in Chicago, MRSA, activism, testimony

March 28, 2009

Consumers Union: 18% of Americans have had a hospital infection in self or family

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Constant readers: You may not be aware that Consumers Union (yes, the nonprofit that publishes the magazine Consumer Reports) has a marvelous project called Stop Hospital Infections that has been instrumental in pushing for hospital-infection reporting and MRSA-control laws, offering support to citizen activists who want change in their states and offering text of a [...]

Written by Maryn McKenna

Also posted in MRSA, hospitals, mandatory reporting, nosocomial