Antibiotic-resistant bacteria

Miracle Drugs

When my son was 2 years old, my wife caught a cold which took a turn for the worse.  Eventually, she was coughing every minute and was unable to sleep at all.  After a couple of trips to the doctor, it was determined she had pneumonia, and was given a powerful antibiotic.  After just a few days on the antibiotic, she was much improved, and able to sleep and recuperate.  In the days before antibiotics, I may have become a widower.  They truly are miracle drugs.

Unfortunately, there are bacteria which have become adapted and can survive the most powerful antibiotic drugs we have.  These are the so-called superbugs.  We have created these superbugs through overuse of antibiotics.

Infections of the ear, urinary tract, skin and lungs are increasingly taking stubborn forms requiring more antibiotics or combinations to cure.  New strains of age-old infectious bacteria are getting harder and harder to treat.

Superbugs

MRSA -- methicillin-resistant (or multi-drug-resistant) Staphylococcus aureus -- is increasingly attacking healthy people, mostly as nasty, invasive skin infections, but also as aggressive pneumonias.  Staphylococcus aureus ("staph") is a very common bacteria, and is part of the normal flora found on the skin and in nasal passages.  MRSA is sometimes known as the "flesh eating" bacteria, and has made the news frequently, such as this young women who recently survived her battle with this antibiotic-resistant bacteria after cutting her leg on a tree.

Meanwhile, certain other bacteria like Acinetobacter baumannii and Klebsiella pneumonia are becoming more lethal, attacking vulnerable hospitalized patients.  Sometimes, they are unaffected by most or all antibiotics available to physicians.  Such bacteria are still the exception, but they illustrate the importance of attempts to stem the proliferation of drug-resistant bacteria.

In 2010, just one of these superbugs, MRSA, caused serious infections in some 80,042 Americans, and killed 11,478. [1]

Antibiotic overuse and abuse

How have these superbugs come about?  We have saturated our environment with antibiotics, drugs we created to fight bacterial infections.  Some 7 million pounds of antibiotics are sold for human use each year, while 29 million pounds are sold for use in animals, mostly food animals.  This represents a gross overuse of the drugs, and makes it less likely they will work for fighting infections when we need them.

Bacteria exist in teeming numbers -- in fact, our own resident bacteria, mostly good helpful bacteria aiding our digestion, outnumber our own body's cells, although much smaller in size.  They reproduce rapidly and can pass on genetic traits including resistance to antibiotics not just to succeeding generations but also to other, different strains of bacteria.  The more often they encounter antibiotics, the more quickly they adapt to them, becoming resistant and hardier.

Respiratory infections such as coughs and colds account for 60 to 70 percent of all antibiotics prescribed in doctors' offices, but only one in five of those infections really need antiobiotics. [2]  The greatest majority of those illnesses are due to viruses, not bacteria.  Antibiotics have no effect at all on viruses.  Some patients want an antibiotic even if there's only a small chance it will help, and doctors often go along with them.  Instead, make sure your doctor knows you want an antibiotic only if it's absolutely necessary.

Some patients also fail to take the entire course of antibiotics as prescribed, or even save pills for later use or to share.  This allows germs to persist, develop resistance and may allow them to come roaring back causing an even more serious illness.  The U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that in hospitals, nearly half of all antibiotic prescriptions are inappropriate.

Don't take antibiotics without a physician's advice, and only when necessary.  Don't take antibiotics for the common cold.  Be sure to take antibiotics exactly as prescribed, completing the entire course unless otherwise advised by a doctor.

Effect on the Individual and the Community

Antibiotic use affects the individual and the community.  It changes the mix of bacteria living in the gut and on the skin, killing weak bacteria and giving drug-resistant bacteria a chance to take hold.  Research suggests taking commonly prescribed antibiotics increases one's own risk of being infected with MRSA.  Recent or current treatment with antibiotics is the single biggest risk factor for infection with Clostridium difficile ("C.diff"), a drug-resistant bacteria that can cause severe diarrhea.  Found most commonly in health care facilities, this bacteria is estimated in being linked with 14,000 American deaths per year.

Resistant bugs can also be passed to household members, like any bacteria.  One study found that family members of a person taking antibiotics for acne were more likely to have drug-resistant acne germs on their skin.

According to the CDC (April 2011), antibiotic resistance in the United States costs an estimated $20 billion a year in excess health care costs, $35 billion in other societal costs and more than 8 million additional days that people spend in the hospital.

Not Just People

Human medicine isn't the only place where antibiotics are used too frequently.  Most cattle, pigs and poultry are given antibiotics, not just to treat illnesses or to prevent the spread of disease, but also to promote faster growth.  These drugs are often the same as or very similar to drugs used to treat people.  

Eating contaminated meat transmits superbugs created in animal use of antibiotics to humans.  In 2011, 136 people in 34 states got sick and one person died after eating ground turkey carrying a strain of salmonella resistant to multiple antibiotics.  Farms also spread the bacteria.  Most of the bacteria end up outside the animal, as fecal matter.  Where does the fecal matter go?  Into the water and into the soil.  The soil dries and gets broken into dust.  Everybody is downwind or downstream from someone else.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently issued new guidelines that call for a halt to the usage of antibiotics to enhance growth in animals.  One wonders where the U.S. Department of Agriculture is on this issue.

The Future?

Antibiotic resistance is a complex, global and growing problem.  Resistance is produced by the misuse of antibiotics.  Lives are already being lost to antibiotic resistance.  We need to get antibiotics out of the environment as best we can. 

(*) The Rise of Resistance -- reference
[1] U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
[2] Ralph Gonzales, M.D.,  University of California, San Francisco

Crawling Like a Baby

My son is working through a therapy called, "Neurological Reorganization."  When I was in elementary school, the whole school did some of the same stuff, and the program had been around since the 1940s.  To get him to be more motivated, I did everything with him, including lying on my belly on the kitchen floor, and crawling.  We began the program when I'd been having a lot of low back pain, and even rolling over in bed was agony.  Getting down on my front on the kitchen floor looked like a huge sacrifice of my dignity, as well as a lot more pain.  For the first week, my knees and elbows grew bruises and (when I crawled on the carpet) blisters.  Then I got smarter, and put on knee and elbow pads.

One morning found myself without back pain - and rejoiced that I had found something I could do with my son that helped me out, as well.  We laughed at one another, listened to goofy CDs of Bill Cosby, Terry Foy, and others, and played games of hiding small cat toys around the house.  I felt my waistline beginning to come back into the shape I remembered fondly from photographs...but had not seen for four or five years.

As we crawled on the wooden floor of the kitchen, I thought about the motions my body made, and how the core muscles were being used to slide, lift and propel my body forward, but without much weight resting on my spine.  The twisting of the torso and the alternating arm/leg movements were a decent workout, and I worked up a sweat.  If nothing else, it was 40 minutes of exercise I could get at home, while doing things with my child.  The mouse-eye perspective of my cabinets and floor gave me some inspiration to collect the pet fur and drips more often.

For about a week, our schedule seemed way too hectic for me to get my crawling in before breakfast, and with my 51-year-old body, I just don't want to lie on my tummy after eating.  One weekend vigorous gardening and the next Monday morning, I woke up with a sore back again.

I'm back at crawling again, even with my nearing-teen-age child asking me to not be in the same room, or not do my work-out at the same time he does.  (Sigh.  He's getting to THAT age.)  I miss a day now and then, but getting my old bones down on the floor looks a lot better after knowing what it does for me.  This core-body work-out needs no special equipment and you don't need to leave home.   For us, NR is now a family exercise.

Ethanol in gasoline, not such a hot idea?

I'm all in favor of weaning America off foreign petroleum, but the following is not the way to do it. The EPA and the state of Minnesota in separate but related stupidities have decreed we will have 15% Ethanol (E15) in our gasoline (EPA) and 20% Ethanol (E20) in our gasoline (Minnesota, starting August 2013) -- both before the testing results of what that would do to automobiles came in.

Well, the test results are now in, and it's a crap shoot for car owners -- CRC final report for project CM-136-09-1B, Intermediate-Level Ethanol Blends Engine Durability Study (PDF).

Those cars older than 2001 stand a good chance of fuel system damage from the lower 15% version. We here in Minnesota will be seeing this version in our pumps very soon, if I understand the Minnesota statute correctly (I may not, since it's very obtuse: https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/?id=239.791). The rest of the country is likely to see E15 as a result of the EPA ruling, as well.

For cars newer than 2001, some may be ok with 15%, while others the manufacturers (e.g. Ford) specifically disclaim warranty if used with 15%, while others specifically label their gasoline caps to say NO gasoline with more than 10% ethanol.

20% ethanol is, of course, even worse than 15% as far as risk of damage to fuel systems and engine metals (CRC testing showed damaged valves, for example).

While the Minnesota statute is obtuse in its many subdivisions and references to federal law, and numerous special interest exceptions (ATVs, airplanes, boats, etc.), one thing is clear. The law was not written using science, engineering, or with the purpose of reducing air pollution or dependence on foreign oil. It was instead written with one purpose, political payback. It benefits Minnesota corn growers and ethanol industry members who helped elect former governor Tim Pawlenty and the legislators who pushed the law. This is made obvious in that decisions regarding expiration of the law are based on determinations made by the commissioner of agriculture.

Ed Welsh, Oneida County Legislator (New York) and Central Region General Manager for AAA New York, has written a good editorial about the ethanol situation and the CRC study results.  It's very worth reading. My favorite passage says:

If we examine how the federal government mandates certain products we would find that it occurs in one of three ways. In no particular order, the first is to subsidize it , the second is to protect it from competition and third is to require its use. Corn Ethanol as used in our gasoline has the remarkable distinction as perhaps the only product that enjoys all three.

Ask yourself, who would purposely buy fuel that’s more costly, gets worse mileage and increases carbon emissions? Due to government mandate, the answer is: All of us!

Start saving money for car repairs now, folks.

The real reason gasoline is so expensive

This article was eye opening for me. I knew there were a number of reasons our gasoline was nearly $4 a gallon, and always seeming to get more expensive over the years. But I had forgotten that "[c]artels, by definition, exist to maximize the profits of their members." And OPEC members are exactly that, a cartel. For the most part, OPEC countries don't export anything of significance, other than oil. According to the linked article, every time we fill up, we are sending 35 cents per gallon to the "fund" to save the Saudi Arabian king from having unhappy citizens storm the palace -- that is, he is using the "extra" money to pay them off through billions of dollars of spending since the Arab Spring got his attention.

The only way around this is to stop using so much petroleum.  OPEC sits on 80% of the world's reserves. As long as we keep using petroleum, we will keep paying oil monarchs to stay on their thrones.

Big Ag redefines feral, criminalizes Michigan pig owners

Always follow the money, and always follow the greed, it seems.  Big, industrial pork producers and their industry have managed to lobby, cajole, bribe, or do whatever it takes to get a new Michigan law passed which essentially redefines the word feral when used with pigs.

The commonly understood meanings are in a wild state and resembling a wild animal especially when referring to a domesticated animal having escaped from captivity or domestication, e.g. a feral cat.  But now in Michigan, it apparently will mean any pig not raised on an industrial hog farm.

Small farmers, raising pigs of other breeds than those used on industrial hog farms, will become felons under the new law, passed in 2010 and scheduled to take effect April 1, 2012.

Here's a good article describing the situation in detail:  http://www.alternet.org/story/154752/