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Category Archives: resistance

February 20, 2010

Antibiotics and farming — how superbugs happen

Constant readers: There’s an important new paper that’s been out for a week that I haven’t gotten to you. I apologize; it’s been busy. (Let’s not even talk about the important paper that’s been out for two weeks. Maybe over the weekend…) We’ve talked for ages now about the potential dangers of unrestricted antibiotic use in [...]

Written by Maryn McKenna

Also posted in MRSA, animals, antibiotics, farming, veterinary

December 29, 2009

Another resistant bug rising: Acinetobacter

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From the excellent and forward-thinking research team at Extending the Cure comes a dismaying report: over 7 years, a more than 3-fold increase in resistance in the Gram-negative bacterium Acinetobacter baumanii to its drug of last resort, imipenem. Because MRSA is a Gram-positive, we don’t talk much here about the Gram-negatives — the two categories of [...]

Written by Maryn McKenna

Also posted in Acinetobacter, antibiotics, drug development

December 14, 2009

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

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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, legislation

August 20, 2009

Non-medical use of antibiotics: A whole new problem with ethanol

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Constant readers, we’ve talked frequently about the emerging recognition that the enormous use of antibiotics in agriculture is fueling the development of resistance, both directly in the case of specific organisms such as MRSA ST-398, and indirectly in that it pushes the evolution of resistance factors that bacteria then trade amongst themselves. (For a [...]

Written by Maryn McKenna

Also posted in ST 398, animals, antibiotics, ethanol, food

July 22, 2009

Media round-up: recommending MRSA stories

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By chance — or is it because interest is really picking up? — a couple of worthwhile stories on MRSA have been published almost simultaneously: For when the science gets wonky: Environmental Health Perspectives has an excellent lay-language explanation of how drug resistance emerges and spreads — with gorgeous graphics! For when yet another drug doesn’t work: [...]

Written by Maryn McKenna

Also posted in ST 398, animals, antibiotics, drug development, food

June 13, 2009

Antibiotics in water supplies

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Via the journal Environmental Health Perspectives comes an important, comprehensive review article by scientists from Environment Canada and the Universite de Montreal on the presence of antibiotics in water supplies and waste water. The news is not good. If you are concerned about the possibility that antibiotic residues in the environment create another setting in which [...]

Written by Maryn McKenna

Also posted in animals, environmental, sewage

June 11, 2009

Farm animals and antibiotics – a new campaign

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I was gobsmacked to discover today, a few days late, that the Pew Campaign on Human Health and Industrial Farming (authors of the report discussed here) have launched a marvelously in-your-face series of ads in Washington DC, aimed at bringing the issue of antibiotic use in farm animals to people who might not think about [...]

Written by Maryn McKenna

Also posted in MRSA, animals, zoonotic

April 20, 2009

How sewage plants birth resistant bacteria

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At the always-excellent public health blog Effect Measure, there’s a fascinating dissection of a new paper still in press at the journal Science of the Total Environment. The paper unpacks what happens to Acinetobacter in effluent as they move through sewage treatment. Answer: Many are eliminated, but the ones that survive become significantly more resistant. I [...]

Written by Maryn McKenna

Also posted in antibiotics, environmental, sewage

February 26, 2009

Do not, do not, do NOT do this

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Hi from down the rabbit hole, readers (is there an echo?) — I am deep into a chapter and not surfacing much. Therefore, I’m once again behind in my reading, and so just stumbled across this from last week: a New York Times article called out by Liz Borkowski on the excellent public health blog [...]

Written by Maryn McKenna

Also posted in antibiotics, uninsured

January 24, 2009

The havoc resistant bugs can wreak: Mariana Bridi, RIP

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Constant readers, you may not have seen this story: It has been moving very fast over the past few days, has now concluded, and is very sad. Mariana Bridi, a 20-year-old Brazilian who was twice a finalist in her country’s preliminaries of the Miss World competition, died this morning of severe sepsis after a brutal battle [...]

Written by Maryn McKenna

Also posted in Pseudomonas, sepsis