[IronJack]

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.

I'm always a little skeptical when I hear these apocalyptic predictions. Fear is never a safe motivator for radical social change.

[absinthe]

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.

I'm always a little skeptical when I hear these apocalyptic predictions. Fear is never a safe motivator for radical social change.

I agree. The author talks about the millions killed by the bubonic plague (although it's never been definitively proven what organism caused the plague) and the hundreds of thousands of Civil War soldiers killed by wound infections.

She then describes a handful of case reports of modern MRSA infections. But where's the hundreds of thousands or millions dying? Why does she have to list individual cases if the situation is so bad?

She also needs to better research her pharmacology. Vancomycin is not the last resort. Many strains of MRSA are susceptible to minocycline (Vibramycin), or even trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole (Bactrim or Septra). Linezolid (Zyvox) is a relatively new drug active against MRSA. Mupirocin (Bactroban) is a topical drug active against MRSA; it can be applied directly to an infected skin lesion.

I work in an ER, and see very few serious resistant infections in young, healthy people. Most MRSA infections are, as she correctly notes, complications in older, sicker patients.

On the other hand, I am alarmed about the reports of MRSA infections showing up in swimmers at Daytona Beach (my home town!) or gay men without immune problems. They're still anecdotal cases, but my eyebrow is raised.

[steve86]

this article strikes me as unduly alarmist, almost sensationalist.

Only alarmist if you interpret it as a threat to any one specific individual - the danger to you or me personally is probably slight at this time. But to the population and the medical system it is real and tangible. Think of the hospital in the article closing a surgical ward due to just one case. What if every hospital had 3 or 4? This outcome is not hypothetical, it is inevitable, unless an effective antibiotic or some other treatment is developed. And I can reasonably avoid most AIDS exposure but not this.

[tarheal]

IronJack is right.
The article is factually correct on many points; overuse of antibiotics has resulted in development of resistant bacteria more rapidly than would have occurred otherwise. It is my opinion that that is all that has happened, and we are a few decades ahead of where we would be if I and all of my colleagues had used antibiotics "by the book." Eventually though, we would be where we are, because the bugs will always survive.

BUT it is alarmist and irresponsible to start talking about "doomsday bugs." 99+% of all bacteria are still sensitive to readily available antibiotics. The few people who die due to overwhelming infection are typically old, debilitated, diabetic, or immunosuppressed patients who 50 years ago would not have survived their primary illness long enough to get an infection. Consider that even a century ago, when there were no antibiotics at all, most people did not die right away when they caught an infectious disease. Granted a lot did, but it was improvements in hygiene and sanitation that was responsible for the bulk of the lengthened lifespan. Also keep in mind that some of the greatest killers in history were not bacteria, but viruses (samllpox, flu, polio), and we are now just beginning to develop antiviral medications. So yes, if you are chronically weakened by diabetes, heart failure, AIDS, or advanced age, these bugs are something to worry about, and do your best to keep healthy and out of hospitals (don't even visit sick friends). If you are otherwise healthy, your chances of succumming to an infectious disease are much less than they were 100 or even 50 years ago.

What to do? On a micro scale, don't demand an antibiotic prescription from your doctor if what ails you appears to be viral. If you are serving as a juror in a medical malpractice trial, have a little sympathy for the defendent doctor whois being attacked by a hired gun plaintiff's expert who claims that the plaintiff would have done so much better if only the right antibiotic had been prescribed a day earlier. Most important, keep the government out of the pharmaceutical business. Nothing kills innovation like government intervention, threats of price controls, or higher taxes on the people who risk their time and careers looking for the next effective drug.

[Arpege92]

"While this is certainly a cause for concern, this article strikes me as unduly ararmist, almost sensationalist."

I hope you are right!

[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!