If it sometimes seems like the idea of antibiotic resistance, though unsettling, is more theoretical than real, please read on.
Public health officials from Nevada are reporting on a case of a woman who died in Reno in September from an incurable infection. Testing showed the superbug that had spread throughout her system could fend off 26 different antibiotics.
"It was tested against everything that's available in the United States ... and was not effective," said Dr. Alexander Kallen, a medical officer in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's division of health care quality promotion. Although this isn't the first time someone in the US has been infected with pan-resistant bacteria, at this point, it is not common. It is, however, alarming.
[Journal Ref.]: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/66/wr/mm6601a7.htm
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 15 2017, @03:39PM
Perhaps we should consider bacteriophages.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTwEVK7TMWI [youtube.com]
A bunch of media propaganda has helped deter the U.S. from using them at one time but maybe they should make a comeback.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday January 15 2017, @07:34PM
Bacteriophages can be effective, but they can also cause problems. Microbes mutate...and they aren't necessarily finicky about just what they eat. You may be delicious.
That said, when antibiotics don't work, they're a lot better than nothing. But you need to get the ones that eat just what you've got, don't immediately eat you, and aren't immediately eaten by your immune system. Sometimes this is easy (with proper diagnosis), and sometimes it isn't.
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(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday January 16 2017, @12:42AM
This had occurred to me, but, not being an expert in virology, it's giving me T-virus flashbacks. Seriously, how do you stop your phage cohort from mutating into something potentially even worse? Even sticking in some sort of terminator gene isn't a guarantee, since it could mutate or otherwise excise that gene out...or, worse, pass it into YOUR DNA if it's a retrovirus.
Sometimes I think that what will do the human race in is a biotech experiment gone wrong.
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