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How does the livestock industry talk about antibiotics? Well, it depends on who’s doing the talking, but they all say some version of the same thing. Take the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association; they say there is “no conclusive scientific evidence indicating the judicious use of antibiotics in cattle herds leads to antimicrobial resistance in humans [MRSA].” Or Ron Phillips of the Animal Health Institute (a drug-industry front group). In an interview on Grist last year, he said that before you can draw any conclusions: … You have to look at specific bug/drug combinations and figure out what are the potential...

Antibiotics don't help fight most sinus infections, although doctors routinely prescribe them for that purpose, according to a U.S. study. Researchers whose work was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that antibiotics didn't ease patients' symptoms or get them back to work any sooner than an inactive placebo pill. Antibiotics are known to fuel the evolution of drug-resistant bacteria and experts have grown increasingly worried about overuse. This is a particular concern with sinus infections, because doctors can't tell if the disease is caused by bacteria or by a virus, in which case antibiotics are useless....

One of the most common questions that I am asked from prospective survival medics is “What antibiotics should I stockpile and how do I use them?” There isn’t a 60 second answer to this. Actually, there isn’t a 60 MINUTE answer to this, but anyone that is interested in preserving the health of their loved ones in a collapse will have to learn what antibiotics will work in a particular situation. It’s important to start off by saying that you will not want to indiscriminately use antibiotics for every minor ailment that comes along. In a collapse, the medic is...

Hamilton, ON (Dec. 22, 2011) - Drugs used to overcome cancer may also combat antibiotic resistance, finds a new study led by Gerry Wright, scientific director of the Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research at McMaster University. "Our study found that certain proteins, called kinases, that confer antibiotic resistance are structurally related to proteins important in cancer," says Wright about the study published in Chemistry & Biology. "The pharmaceutical sector has made a big investment in targeting these proteins, so there are a lot of compounds and drugs out there that, although they were designed to overcome cancer,...

Too many people in Tennessee are asking for antibiotics and too many doctors are prescribing them — a practice that renders once-powerful drugs ineffective against infections, according to a recently released study......“Unless we do something really radical and different, we’re going to lose these drugs,” said Dr. Ramanan Laxminarayan, an epidemiologist and economist in Washington, D.C., who was a co-author of the study. “It’s not like we’re going to. We already have in many instances and things are just getting worse...” (Excerpted) http://www.tennessean.com/article/20111118/NEWS07/311180046/Tenn-ranks-3rd-antibiotic-use

> Although the early symptoms of the illness are quite mild, if left untreated, it can result in serious damage to the skin, the joints, the heart and the nervous system, and effective therapy becomes very difficult. A team of researchers led by the veterinary bacteriologist Professor Reinhard Straubinger at Ludwig-Maximilians Universität (LMU) München has now shown, in an animal model, that application of a gel containing the antibiotic azithromycin to the site of the bite rapidly terminates the infection. The efficacy of this local antibiotic therapy for the treatment of borreliosis in humans is now being tested in a...

A new strain of the sexually transmitted disease gonorrhoea has become resistant to antibiotics, international research shows. Analysis of the bacterium that causes gonorrhoea found a new variant which is very effective at mutating. Scientists from the Swedish Reference Laboratory warn that the infection could now become a global threat to public health. New drugs to delay the spread of the infection are needed, experts say. The first case of antibiotic-resistant gonorrhoea was found in Japan. By analysing this new strain of neisseria gonorrhoea, called H041, researchers identified the genetic mutations responsible for the new strain's extreme resistance to all...

Guess that it was bound to happen. Was just a matter of time. But now I’ve come to my decision, And it’s one of the painful kind. ‘Cause now it seems that you wanted a martyr. Just a regular guy wouldn’t do. But baby I can’t hang upon no lover’s cross for you. ~ Jim CroceThis sweet, sad lyric by Jim Croce may well be the new anthem in the sexual revolution, as word comes recently from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that strains of Gonorhhea that are resistant to all antibiotics have now emerged. Get all of...

Doctors have discovered that adding sugar to antibiotics increases their ability to knock out persistent staph infections (abstract). Certain types of bacteria called persisters shut down their metabolic processes when exposed to antibiotics. Adding sugar keeps the bacteria feeding, making them more susceptible to drugs. From the article: "Adding such a simple and widely available compound to existing antibiotics enhances their effectiveness against persisters, and fast. One test showed that a sugared up antibiotic could eliminate 99.9 percent of persisters in two hours, while a regular antibiotic did nothing. Doctors believe that this discovery will help treat urinary tract infections,...

A new breed of biodegradable nanoparticles can glom on to drug-resistant bacteria, breaching their cell walls and leaking out their contents, selectively killing them. The polymer particles could someday be used in anything from injectable treatments for drug-resistant bacteria, to new antibacterial soaps and deodorants, according to inventors at IBM. After their work is done, the particles break apart, flushing away with the invaders they destroyed. The nanoparticles, which IBM says are relatively inexpensive, were effective against bugs that have been evolving to resist antibiotics, including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). Preliminary results suggest the particles could also be effective against...

ON DECEMBER 11th 1945, at the end of his Nobel lecture, Alexander Fleming sounded a warning. Fleming’s chance observation of the antibiotic effects of a mould called Penicillium on one of his bacterial cultures had inspired his co-laureates, Howard Florey and Ernst Chain, two researchers based in Oxford, to extract the mould’s active principal and turn it into the miracle cure now known as penicillin. But Fleming could already see the future of antibiotic misuse. “There is the danger”, he said, “that the ignorant man may easily underdose himself and by exposing his microbes to non-lethal quantities of the drug...

Dr. Brad Spellberg, an infectious disease expert at Harbor UCLA Medical Center says there is no current teatment for CRKP bacteria — and there might not be any in the future either. County health officials warn the elderly are especially at risk of CRKP infections. (Getty Images) “There’s been a complete collapse in the development of new antibiotics over the last decade…and in the next decade there isn’t going to be anything that becomes available that’s going to be able to treat these bacteria,” said Spellberg. Medical expert Dr. David Baron of Primary Caring in Malibu cautions hospital visitors that...

Prescribing antibiotics for patients with discoloured phlegm caused by acute cough has little or no effect on alleviating symptoms and recovery, a Cardiff University study has found. Acute cough is one of the common reasons why people visit their GP and accounts for a large proportion of antibiotics prescribed in the community. One of the most common questions asked by GPs to their patients is about their phlegm: "Are you coughing anything up?" or "What colour is your phlegm?" Clinicians and patients commonly believe that yellow and green phlegm production is associated with a bacterial infection, which is more likely...

New Antibiotics, Stat!The drug makers are in a bind — and public health is in danger. The development of new antibiotics has slowed to a trickle, just when we need them most. As drug-resistant bacteria are on the rampage worldwide, we find ourselves in a most precarious situation — one not unlike the pre-antibiotic era, before penicillin, when staphylococcal and pneumococcal infections were the dominant pathogens. Now MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) kills more people than AIDS every year, and various multiple-drug-resistant organisms have appeared, leaving doctors with few therapeutic weapons for treating a number of prevalent infections. How did this...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Even seemingly gentle antibiotics may severely disrupt the balance of microbes living in the gut, with unforeseen health consequences, U.S. researchers reported on Monday. An intimate study of three women given ciprofloxacin showed the drug suppressed entire populations of beneficial bacteria, and at least one woman took months to recover. The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, supports the common wisdom that antibiotics can damage the "good" germs living in the body. It may also support the idea behind the development of so-called probiotic products including yogurt with live cultures of bacteria.

A chemical analysis of the bones of ancient Nubians shows that they were regularly consuming tetracycline, most likely in their beer. The finding is the strongest evidence yet that the art of making antibiotics, which officially dates to the discovery of penicillin in 1928, was common practice nearly 2,000 years ago. The research, led by Emory anthropologist George Armelagos and medicinal chemist Mark Nelson of Paratek Pharmaceuticals, Inc., is published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology. “We tend to associate drugs that cure diseases with modern medicine,” Armelagos says. “But it’s becoming increasingly clear that this prehistoric population was...

Just 65 years ago, David Livermore's paternal grandmother died following an operation to remove her appendix. It didn't go well, but it was not the surgery that killed her. She succumbed to a series of infections that the pre-penicillin world had no drugs to treat. Welcome to the future. The era of antibiotics is coming to a close. In just a couple of generations, what once appeared to be miracle medicines have been beaten into ineffectiveness by the bacteria they were designed to knock out. Once, scientists hailed the end of infectious diseases. Now, the post-antibiotic apocalypse is within sight....

A new superbug that is resistant to even the most powerful antibiotics has entered UK hospitals, experts warn. They say bacteria which make an enzyme called NDM-1 travelled back with NHS patients who had gone abroad to countries like India and Pakistan for treatments such as cosmetic surgery. Although there have only been about 50 cases identified in the UK so far, scientists fear it will go global. Tight surveillance and new drugs are needed says Lancet Infectious Diseases. NDM-1 can exist inside different bacteria, like E.coli, and it makes them resistant to one of the most powerful groups of...

There are many that believe bikinis are the world's greatest scientific breakthroughs. Many believe that Quaaludes should be brought back. Then there is the world wide favorite, beer, wine, and thermoses. Whoopie cushions, helmets that hold two beer cans, soda cans, (strangely) flying squirrels, the Spork, and reclining chairs. Then there's toilet paper, sunglasses, the fork, air conditioner, paper, the refrigerator, the printing press, and electricity. All are lifestyle accoutrements that make living easier and more enjoyable. But in actuality, the truly brilliant discoveries transcend culture, lifestyle, and Preparation H (no matter how highly recommended). Below are listed and described...

OSLO, Norway – Aker University Hospital is a dingy place to heal. The floors are streaked and scratched. A light layer of dust coats the blood pressure monitors. A faint stench of urine and bleach wafts from a pile of soiled bedsheets dropped in a corner. Look closer, however, at a microscopic level, and this place is pristine. There is no sign of a dangerous and contagious staph infection that killed tens of thousands of patients in the most sophisticated hospitals of Europe, North America and Asia this year, soaring virtually unchecked. The reason: Norwegians stopped taking so many drugs.