Category Archives: Antibiotics

How Do We Measure Success in Combatting Antibiotic Resistance?

Posted on November 30, 2013 by mikethemadbiologist

A recent article describes how China is trying to crack down on its egregious antibiotic misuse: The rise of “suberbugs,” lethal germs that can’t be zapped by most antibiotics, owes particular thanks to China, where antibiotics are handed out like throat … Continue reading →

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The Price of Pork and the Externalities of Antibiotic Resistance

Posted on November 22, 2013 by mikethemadbiologist

If you haven’t read Maryn McKenna’s excellent piece on antibiotic resistance, you should. Before I get to a point about agriculture, I just want to point out this bit from McKenna’s article: At UCLA, Spellberg treated a woman with what … Continue reading →

Posted in Agriculture, Antibiotics, E. coli, Economics, KPC | 10 Comments

U.S. Trade Representatives Think It’s Wrong to Die From TB and AIDS, But Not Chagas Fever

Posted on November 18, 2013 by mikethemadbiologist

We’ll get to Chagas disease in a bit, but first let’s talk about the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement. This is a trade agreement that is being negotiated in secret, and which will then be presented to the Congress for an … Continue reading →

Posted in Antibiotics, Arthropods, Bidness | Comments Off on U.S. Trade Representatives Think It’s Wrong to Die From TB and AIDS, But Not Chagas Fever

What Really Worries Me About the Salmonella-Chicken Outbreak

Posted on October 15, 2013 by mikethemadbiologist

In the midst of all of the Republican debt ceiling/government shutdown lunacy, one of the casualties has been the CDC’s inability to respond to a Salmonella outbreak that has currently sickened hundreds of people in twenty states and territories throughout … Continue reading →

Posted in Antibiotics, CDC, Food, Microbiology, Public Health, Salmonella | 3 Comments

KPC: It’s the Drug Resistance, Stupid

Posted on September 19, 2013 by mikethemadbiologist

Probably. With the recent CDC report detailing the many thousands killed by antibiotic resistance, a recent Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy paper addresses a relevant question: in the clinical setting, are most drug-resistant infections dangerous (or lethal) because they are good … Continue reading →

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A Potential Treatment For CRE?

Posted on July 30, 2013 by mikethemadbiologist

In my opinion, the greatest infectious disease threat in the U.S. is CRE–Carbapenem Resistant Enterobacteriaceae. These are bacteria, including E. coli and its relatives (such as Klebsiella and Enterobacter), that are resistant to essentially all drugs (colistin can cause massive … Continue reading →

Posted in Antibiotics, KPC | 1 Comment

Our Ignorance of the Link Between Antibiotic Resistance and Agricultural Use Is No Accident

Posted on July 19, 2013 by mikethemadbiologist

We come across two posts and an online forum hosted by the British Medical Journal about whether agricultural antibiotic use results in the evolution and spread of antibiotic resistance. A common theme that emerges is that the scientific evidence is … Continue reading →

Posted in Agriculture, Antibiotics | 3 Comments

Misunderstanding NARMS and Missing the Solution: How Not to Do Antibiotic-Related Advocacy

Posted on May 9, 2013 by mikethemadbiologist

During the past month, the Environmental Working Group (‘EWG’) released a report (pdf) about 2011 Retail Meat Annual Report of the National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System (‘NARMS’; pdf). In short, EWG mistated the problem, demonstrated some astonishing ignorance (or cynicism), … Continue reading →

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Hospital Infection and Profit

Posted on March 28, 2013 by mikethemadbiologist

No, this is not the name of a new microbiology journal. Instead, it is one reason why hospital-acquired infections (‘HAI’) in the U.S., compared to many other countries, have not decreased. According to a Clostridium difficile (‘C diff’) expert at … Continue reading →

Posted in Antibiotics, CDC, Public Health | 2 Comments

When Carbapenem Resistance Is Sneaky

Posted on March 27, 2013 by mikethemadbiologist

Because what we really need are more ways to have carbapenem resistant enterobacteriaceae (‘CRE’), which are bacteria resistant to all penicillin derivatives–and almost always resistant to just about every other antibiotic. While the two ‘famous’ types of carbapenem resistance genes, … Continue reading →

Posted in Antibiotics, KPC, NDM-1, VIM | Comments Off on When Carbapenem Resistance Is Sneaky