Re: From U.S.News and World Report

[Guest guest]

Thank you . I remember a few years back attending an herbal

conference where I heard " bacteria are angry and they are going to

fight back! " I believed it then and more so now. Bacteria mutate

faster than we can come up with new drugs. I find garlic to work just

fine for most things.

We will use antibiotics on the farm in life and death situations. The

mother-in-law gets a runny nose and goes for a dose. She's probably on

some form of antibiotic one or two weeks out of every month. She never

feels well and probably never will.

Belinda

> From U.S.News and World Report

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> 1/9/06

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> Bugs Behaving Badly

>

> Antibiotics are aging, and bacteria are learning to fight them off

>

> By Avery Comarow

>

> Last month brought fresh evidence that while small, bacteria can

certainly

> look out for themselves. Clostridium difficile, a microbe that can cause

> serious digestive illness and death in vulnerable patients in

hospitals and

> nursing homes but rarely bothers healthy adults outside healthcare

settings,

> was blamed by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for

> doing just that in four states. Like many other germs, it apparently had

> mutated, under pressure from antibiotics, into a toxic new strain.

>

> As if that wasn't bad enough, a couple of weeks later, the Journal

of the

> American Medical Association suggested that we had aided the

resourceful C.

> difficile by dosing ourselves with pills such as Pepcid and Prilosec

that

> prevent severe heartburn, or reflux, by lowering the acidity of the

> stomach's gastric juices. That acidity, noted the authors, keeps the

upper

> part of the digestive tract bug free. By reducing the acidity, the pills

> lowered the barrier.

>

> Unbeatable. Such news was just the latest in a string of

misadventures that

> illuminate the uncommon adaptive power of bacteria. Until about 25 years

> ago, most disease-causing germs stood little chance against the

stream of

> antibiotics that had emerged from laboratories during the 1940s and

'50s.

> Top researchers at large pharmaceutical companies truly believed

that the

> days of infectious disease were over.

>

> But the flow of unique new classes of antibiotics ebbed and died in the

> 1960s. Resistant strains of microbes that had crumbled obediently at the

> touch of drugs like vancomycin appeared. Now some 2 million hospital

> patients a year get bacterial infections; about 90,000 of them die. The

> National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases estimates that

more

> than 70 percent of the bacteria that cause these infections are

resistant to

> one or more antibiotics. That complicates care, inflating the cost of

> treating an infected patient. And so reports such as these are

piling up:

>

> Military service members injured in Iraq and Afghanistan

increasingly are

> coming home with Acinetobacter baumannii, a potent microbe that causes

> pneumonia and blood infections, in their wounds. Plucked straight

from soil

> or water, the bug is naturally resistant, often to multiple antibiotics.

> Sometimes physicians have to turn to coliston, a drug rarely used

since the

> 1960s because of the high chance of injuring the kidneys and nervous

system.

>

> Gonorrhea used to be easily treatable with penicillin, but the bacterium

> responsible, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, long ago shrugged it off. Now

the newer

> quinolone class of antibiotics such as Cipro and Floxin, which

became the

> drugs of choice, are being defeated in the United States and in

Australia,

> Canada, Great Britain, and Hong Kong. It has gotten so bad, J. Todd

Weber,

> director of the CDC' s office of antimicrobial resistance, wrote in

a JAMA

> editorial in November, that the usefulness of quinolone drugs to

treat and

> control gonorrhea " is being lost worldwide because of increasing

> resistance. "

>

> Resistant strains of bacteria usually confined to hospitals are finding

> their way into local communities. In 2003 and 2005, studies fingered

> Staphylococcus aureus, a microbe that is blamed for many serious

heart and

> lung infections in hospitals and nursing homes and is resistant to the

> methicillin class of anti-biotics, as the cause of outbreaks of skin

> abscesses in high school wrestlers in Indiana, members of a Colorado

fencing

> club, and five players on the St. Louis Rams football team.

>

> Methicillin-resistant S. aureus is being transported into hospitals from

> outside, not just sent into communities from hospitals. A report to be

> published later this month in the Journal of Infectious Diseases

states that

> as many as 90 million healthy people, or nearly one third of the U.S.

> population, carry S. aureus as a passenger in their noses. And in

more than

> 2 million of them, the bug is the resistant strain. Based on cultures of

> nasal samples taken from some 9,600 individuals selected at random

in 2001

> and 2002 as part of an ongoing national health and nutrition survey, the

> study was the first to determine the precise extent to which the

microbe has

> made itself at home throughout the population. The answer, clearly,

is: very

> at home.

>

> Overload. What has exacerbated matters is Americans' well-documented

> tendency to think they need an antibiotic for every cold or cough or

child's

> sore throat or earache. And physicians tend to go along, arguing

that they

> don't have time to educate patients on the folly of taking an

antibiotic.

> The larger the quantity of antibiotics prescribed, the greater the

> opportunity for bacteria to form resistant mutations. Yet in an

analysis in

> JAMA published in November, more than half of children who came to a

> doctor's office, a hospital outpatient department, or an emergency room

> between 1995 and 2003 because of a sore throat left with an antibiotic.

>

> Such reflexive prescribing is unsound medicine. Most sore throats

are caused

> by viruses, which don't respond to antibiotics, so the majority of the

> children wouldn't have been helped. And many of the kids who did take an

> antibiotic, the JAMA analysis found, were prescribed one that was

not among

> those specifically recommended by physician groups and the CDC.

>

> Surely a prescription is justified for an adult who's been coughing

for more

> than a week, is running a fever, and--skip ahead to the next sentence if

> squeamish--is hacking up greenish phlegm. But no. The largest study

to date

> of the merits of antibiotics for such patients, published in JAMA in

June,

> found the cough didn't go away or the severity of the symptoms

lessen any

> sooner in a group of patients on antibiotics than in another group that

> didn't get them. " Perhaps it is not a coincidence, " suggested family

> physician Mark Ebell in an accompanying editorial, " that

> manufacturer-sponsored placebo-controlled trials of newer

anti-biotics for

> acute bronchitis in healthy adults are absent from the literature. "

>

> Some researchers, among them Stuart Levy, a microbiologist at Tufts

> University School of Medicine and founder and president of the

Alliance for

> the Prudent Use of Antibiotics, worry about another source of antibiotic

> resistance: antibacterial household products. Between 300 and 550

> germ-fighting products, such as liquid soaps, laundry detergents,

and even

> toothbrushes, have been introduced every year since 1999, according to

> Datamonitor, a Naples, N.Y., market research firm.

>

> Levy cautions that trying to stamp out germs in healthy households could

> breed tougher bugs that might also resist anti-biotics. A study he

> coauthored, published in October in Emerging Infectious Diseases,

found no

> such problem in 224 households after a year of use. But Levy argues:

" That

> wasn't long enough. Vancomycin was used for years before resistance

> emerged. " It's worth noting that the cleaners aren't anything

special. The

> study found them no better at exorcising bacteria than plain soap.

>

> Empty shelves. The solution to larger issues of antibiotic resistance is

> more and better drugs. If that doesn't happen, warns " Bad Bugs, No

Drugs, " a

> report issued in 2004 by a task force of the Infectious Diseases

Society of

> America, whose 8,000 members are mostly physicians and scientists, the

> country--and the world--face a brewing crisis in which millions of

people

> could die. " The shelf is very sparse, " says Bartlett, a

physician who

> chaired the task force and is founding director of the Center for

Civilian

> Biodefense Strategies at the s Hopkins School of Public Health.

" When we

> go on rounds every day, we are continually reminded that we're

running out

> of drugs. "

>

> Why few new antibiotics are emerging, says Talbot, a task force

> member and consultant to drug manufacturers, is simple: " Big companies

> decided that there are more fertile fields. They needed to have

blockbuster

> drugs. " Antibiotics are expensive to develop--putting a new one on the

> market would cost at least $800 million and take as long as 10

years--and

> offer a lower return than that offered by medications for chronic

illnesses,

> such as heart disease, Alzheimer's, and depression. Potent new

antibiotics,

> notes Talbot, " are put on the shelf to be used in reserve. It may

make sense

> clinically, but it's not exactly an incentive to companies to

develop new

> drugs. "

>

> The task force concluded that Congress has to give large pharmaceutical

> manufacturers a good reason, in the form of tax breaks and other

financial

> carrots, to get back into antibiotic R & D. Several bills that would

do so,

> however, languish in committee. And so a perfect storm well may be

in the

> making, as microbes gain in strength while current antibiotics,

unbolstered

> by reinforcements, are defeated one by one

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> www.MajestyFarm.com