The superbug that doctors have been dreading just reached the U.S.

"It basically shows us that the end of the road isn’t very far away for antibiotics"

The superbug that doctors have been dreading just reached the U.S.

"For the first time, researchers have found a person in the United States carrying bacteria resistant to antibiotics of last resort, an alarming development that the top U.S. public health official says could signal "the end of the road" for antibiotics.

The antibiotic-resistant strain was found last month in the urine of a 49-year-old Pennsylvania woman. Defense Department researchers determined that she carried a strain of E. coli resistant to the antibiotic colistin, according to a study published Thursday in Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, a publication of the American Society for Microbiology. The authors wrote that the discovery "heralds the emergence of a truly pan-drug resistant bacteria."

[Superbug known as ‘phantom menace’ on the rise in U.S.]

Colistin is the antibiotic of last resort for particularly dangerous types of superbugs, including a family of bacteria known as carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae, or CRE, which health officials have dubbed "nightmare bacteria." In some instances, these superbugs kill up to 50 percent of patients who become infected. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has called CRE among the country's most urgent public health threats.

Health officials said the case in Pennsylvania, by itself, is not cause for panic. The strain found in the woman is treatable with some other antibiotics. But researchers worry that the antibiotic-resistant gene found in the bacteria, known as mcr-1, could spread to other types of bacteria that can already evade other types of antibiotics.

It's the first time this colistin-resistant strain has been found in a person in the United States. In November, public health officials worldwide reacted with alarm when Chinese and British researchers reported finding the colistin-resistant strain in pigs, raw pork meat and in a small number of people in China. The deadly strain was later discovered in Europe, Africa, South America and Canada.

“It basically shows us that the end of the road isn’t very far away for antibiotics — that we may be in a situation where we have patients in our intensive-care units, or patients getting urinary tract infections for which we do not have antibiotics,” CDC Director Tom Frieden said in an interview Thursday.

"I’ve cared for patients for whom there are no drugs left. It is a feeling of such horror and helplessness,” Frieden added. “This is not where we need to be.
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Yep, the end of modern medicine is starting to sunset.
It's worse off in other countries but this doesn't bode well.

 

Sulfur drugs kill every bug like this.

 

I'm not sure this development represents the sunset of modern medicine, it does represent the squandering of a valuable medical resource through inappropriate over prescription to humans, and prescription of antibiotics to livestock so that consumers can have chicken, pork, beef, and mutton cheaply.

 

Nope, modern medicine is going to go back to pre-antibiotic days. If everything can kill you again, goodbye elective surgeries, got a bum knee .. you'll deal with it. Need a new ticker? Well you should have had better genetics, diet, or habits. No more immunosuppressive therapies because the bacteria in the dirt'll kill ya as quick as a physicians mistake.

Without effective antibiotics .. super bugs .. well, may be the death of us all. People will avoid hospitals because they'd be concerned they'd pick up one of these nasties.

Hopefully we can find a long term replacement for these antibiotics but how fast the bacterium are mutating, todays wonder pills are only good for a couple of years before nature finds a way to be 'em.

 

Yes and sometimes the person with the bug too. Sulfa Drugs do have some serious risks and effect a small but measurable percent of the population. Pregnant women and nursing women should be very careful as risk to the fetus and infant are greatly intensified.

As with any 'Cure' there are those that are killed by the cure.

Penicillin, latex tubing and gloves, sulfa and other miracle cures have saved millions of lives but they in themselves have killed too.

 

Yep, that was what I was alluding to. With just about every drug out there. For some it's a Miracle, for others it could be their demise.

 

Ooooh it looks like jelly beans. That makes me feel a lot better about death.

 

Medieval garlic and bile kills MRSA | Survival Monkey Forums
Back to fermented garlic and bile I guess

 

Don't forget the maggots and leeches... Ahhh, for the days when your barber cut your hair, sewed you back up, and cut off their heads in an execution...it's not going to be Back to the Future, instead it will be Forward to the Past...

 

I can take anything...
Except a wasp sting.

 

Though it may sound a bit far fetched ,it is likely that in time ,just like it was a few hundred years ago ,people chose a spouse more on the basis of health . Modern society has created a great many problems ignoring this issue.

 

They did and still do.

 

AIDS.....Legionnaires......Avian Flu......Ebola.....and more super flu's that anyone can remember......and were still here....this is no different.....

 

We have Zika worries in Rio which with the Olympics and people converging from all over the world, things could spread far and wide. We also have this nastiness that has popped up:

A disfiguring tropical disease is sweeping across the Middle East

I worry that our immune systems will get overloaded trying to defeat these super bugs and diseases.