From savior to assassin - How killer germs have defeated our last antibiotic

Newark Star Ledger ^ | 12/7/03 | AMY ELLIS NUTT

[Incorrigible]

The only thing Robert Thompson knows for certain is that his patient died. Almost everything else about Ryan Donahoe's illness remains a mystery -- and a warning. Now, five months later, the Seattle physician still asks the same question.

How could a strong, athletic 19-year-old walk into a hospital emergency room complaining only of fever and lower back pain and seven days later end up dead?

[Old Professer]

Bacteria, not viruses.

[Old Professer]

As harsh as it sounds, if a hospital has multiple cases of one type of infectious disease the only prudent thing to do is to mive them all in together to prevent the disease from spreading to the staff and general population.

[Mamzelle]

re: if the bacteria are so far ahead of the antibiotics, why isn't there a crisis in animal care, or better yet, why haven't we heard of it if there is?)))

With animals, practitioners are freer to use their judgement. Animals not only die with their germs, but are often euthenized. Notice what happened with the recent bovine infections in England. One excellent way to stem the spread of infection is to kill and burn the infected.

"What, no prescription? Don't you love me, doc? Do I have to call hospital admin to get my antibiotics, or shall I call my lawyer?"

Things are complicated with people--you can't just shoot them.

[Yaelle]

I have a colloidal silver generator

Be careful. I lived in a town once where there was this elegant woman going about with perfectly silver/grey skin. The color of an elephant. I marveled at her and asked over the years about how a person could get like that. She looked horrible, even though she attempted to appear as normal as possible.

Finally, one doctor friend said that she had probably ingested colloidal silver. A certain amount of it will turn you PERMANENTLY SILVER.

[Old Professer]

Your scenario doesn't fit the paradigm; disinfectants "kill" germs in a different manner than antibiotics; to me, having worked in one, hospital laundries are a much more suspect area.

If it were up to me, every single garment, sheet, blanket, towel, cloth and diaper would be sterilized with UV light before being returned to use.

[Old Professer]

Let's make http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/idlh/10028156.html a working link

[VOA]

While this is certainly a cause for concern, this article strikes me as unduly
alarmist, almost sensationalist. The medical community has been predicting this
biological disaster for a decade now, and it is not coming to pass any more
than the AIDS pandemic.

Having nearly lost a leg to such an infection (the doctors called it "flesh eating
bacteria, Jr."), I hope you are right.
Took two weeks of intravenous antibiotics to finally bring it to a halt.

There was an article posted here in the past year about a fisherman who died from
such an infection. The doctors (probably in full CYA mode) were saying they'd
never seen such a thing.
My guess from my experiences? They probably followed the "don't use antibiotics
unless you have to" mania and by the time they decided they were dealing with a nasty
bacterial infection...too late.

In my case, the MORON M.D. initially prescribed a steroid for what I realize now
any decent military medic would have recognized as a bacterial infection requiring antibiotics.
STAT!

[Old Professer]

Ethylene oxide is so unstable as to present a hazard in open use; it once was a policy to adulterate it with CFC 12 but that has become so restricted that only special exemptions allow its use.

[Old Professer]

Iodine is used as a detectant for ozone gas, it turns purple.

[aMorePerfectUnion]

Two things that may hold the key to effectively conquering these killer bacteria...

First, and available now...

NutriBiotic's Capsules Plus - which has demonstrated effectiveness against these types of pathogens and can be purchased inexpensively now.

Ultimately, MACROPHAGES!

While the west was wooed by pharmaceutical companies promoting antibiotics, the USSR continued research into macrophages, which are bacteria specific and attack and multiply themselves until the bacteria they target is wiped out. This Soviet research has come back to our country and is in testing against animal disease now. Do a google search.

The solution isn't more antibiotics. The solution will be in a different field and different approach.

Just my two cents from reading.

ampu

[Old Professer]

Dirty needles don't pick patients.

[Old Professer]

Mive should have been move, sorry, clumsy fingers.

[Old Professer]

Sure you can, but we aren't there yet.

[IronJack]

Gee, I'd love to hear an alternative cleaning protocol for using disenfectants in hospital. Since you know what is too much, care to share about what exactly is enough?

See any of the dozen posts above re ozone, UV radiation, or other options.

Gee, I'd love to hear why you're so defensive about this. It's pretty obvious that there's a problem here, and misuse of disinfectants may very well have contributed to it. You must have a dog in this fight or you wouldn't have overreacted so strongly.

[handk]

You conveniently miss the point. Several actually.

When I speak of ozone not being avaiable in America, it should have been clear that I was speaking "medically", not industrially. Same for my mention of Europe.

Secondly, there is such a thing as "medical ozone", which is produced from pure medical-grade oxygen.

And yes, I'm well aware that ozone is used worldwide, including America, to purify drinking water, to clean pools, to clean interior air, and so on. However, to the best of my knowledge, it cannot be used to treat disease in America, even though thousands of doctors in Europe have been using it for over 50 years.

I believe your position is basically one of "pay no attention to that man behind the curtain."

The fact is, a simple search at Google under "ozone therapy" will turn up a ton of information on the subject, both pro and con. However, if everyone took your "con" on the subject at face value, they'd never bother searching out the pro, and that's what you obviously want to occur.

[Stop Legal Plunder]

Bump for later reference...

[DannyTN]

I agree it's alarmist.

I don't think the bacteria are any worse than if we had never used antibiotics. It's just that we would have been dead sooner. So it's not like we are creating a nightmare.

I also object to the turn overuse of antibiotics. Seems to me that the problem is underuse of antibiotics. Not knocking infections completely out. Not quarantining individuals with compromised immune systems. Etc.

[dennisw]

That's a lot of guesswork there with no proof she overdosed on colloidal silver. What was the time frame since CS has only been real popular in the last ten years? A Libertarian party candidate last year was laughed at for taking colloidal silver way too much and turning his skin blue-gray. I have very good information that he made his CS incorrectly.  

I rarely make colloidal silver. I make colloidal gold and drink a glassful each day. It's 20 ppm which is a homeopathic dose. What I make is 75% as good as what these folks make --->  http://www.purestcolloids.com/mesogold.htm

 

[rmlew]

We need to lessen the FDA administrative process on anti-biotics and reduce liability for them.

[Dan from Michigan]

Scary as hell. I got Scarlet Fever twice as a kid.