One more story on germs

Growth promoters: If you can’t convince them, sue them

“The reason we’re filing suit now is because the antibiotic resistance crisis is reaching alarming proportions,” Avi Kar, NRDC’s health program attorney, told me. “In the face of the growing scientific evidence, FDA continues to focus almost exclusively on voluntary approaches such as those in the guidance currently under development. The coalition lawsuit is designed to get FDA to stop punting the issue and to finally take meaningful action.”

I can't prove it has any bearing, but when I stopped eating meat 20 years ago, I stopped getting strep throat, a condition so prevalent in my life that I went through my entire childhood with tonsils intact because they were never free from infection long enough to take them out, or so I've been told. After numerous infections into early adulthood, they suddenly stopped when I stopped eating the meat from animals routinely dosed with antibiotics to make them grow bigger and act as a prophylactic treatment to prevent illness. I also suspect that given the number of antibiotics I am allergic to, it's probably best I'm not exposed to them, although I don't know if it actually is passed on through the meat.

Trouble is, antibiotics, when used prophylactically like that, only help encourage antibiotic resistance in bacteria, because it exposes them to a variety of drugs, even when there is no active infection. This kills off the bacteria that are not resistant, leaving those that can evolve or cope with resistance. Since many of those same germs infect people, and many of those same antibiotics are used by people, it means we're reaping the rewards of these actions by having more difficulty fighting off infections in ourselves. In my mind, the practice of doping animals with antibiotics, along with our tendency to antiseptic everything (wipes in the grocery store for carts, lots of alcohol-containing gels, etc.), is doing a lot of harm. (And tangentially, studies also show that as our immune systems have less to fight off, there tends to be an increase in allergies and autoimmune disorders.)

Now I admit, I don't really know a lot about microbiology, besides a short college major in biology and some general reading, but the FDA should. And it (and Congress, which consistently quashes any attempts by the agency to flex their muscles concerning farming antibiotic use) should be doing something to prevent future issues. I don't think this lawsuit will particularly change the game, but it's an interesting approach.

According to YKWIA

I was pretty incoherent on the phone just now, as I walked home. I am so tired. I'm eating; which hurts, as my jaw is swollen, too. I just took the Bactrim DS that I got instead of the Spectracef, took a couple of Advil, and I'm going to go on to bed for awhile after I'm finished eating. But the pain is nowhere near where it was this morning, at least, and my ear is draining now, which is gross but I suspect good, since there's so much pressure built up inside.

Sorry to go on about being sick, but it's a little all-consuming right now, although I did get quite a bit accomplished at work despite feeling like crap. I'll try to get up a little later so 1) I don't have trouble sleeping later and 2) to do some interesting blogging, rather than going on about ear stuff.

PS The badge photos got moved up to Wednesday and Thursday. Joy. Oh, well, at least we're having a book fair tomorrow. :)

One reason I'm glad I don't eat meat

Multi-Drug Resistant Staph in 1 in 4 Meat Samples

A team of researchers from Arizona bought meat and poultry in five cities across the United States, tested them for bacteria, and found this: 47 percent of the samples contained the very common pathogen Staphylococcus aureus, and 96 percent of those isolates were resistant to at least one antibiotic. Of more concern: 52 percent of those staph isolates were resistant to at least three antibiotics that are commonly used in both veterinary and human medicine.

I know, you can get E. coli from vegetables and fruits organically grown in manure as well, but meat just isn't appealing to me on so many levels. And although I can't prove any relevance, I will say that I haven't had a strep infection (which I got so often when I was younger that I couldn't get my tonsils out because they weren't free of the infection) since I stopped eating meat twenty years ago.

Hello--is this really a surprise?

Disinfectants 'train' superbugs to resist antibiotics

It makes sense that antibiotic use could make bacteria resistant to antibiotics they've been exposed to, and that all our antibacterial agents in soaps and disinfectant could do the same for those agents as well, right? But then there's this, something I intuitively thought was the case but didn't have the science to back it up--until now:

Scientists in Galway found that by adding increasing amounts of disinfectant to cultures of pseudomonas aeruginosa in the lab, the bacteria learnt to resist not only the disinfectant but also ciprofloxacin - a commonly-prescribed antibiotic - even without being exposed to it.

The researchers report the bacteria had adapted to pump out anti-microbial agents - be they a disinfectant or an antibiotic - from their cells.

The adapted bacteria also had a mutation in their DNA that allowed them to resist ciprofloxacin-type antibiotics specifically.

I must say, though, I find the mechanism fascinating.