Posted on 04/05/2011 11:05:59 AM PDT by neverdem
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 make them resistant.”
Penicillin and the other antibiotics that its discovery prompted stand alongside vaccination as the greatest inventions of medical science. Yet Fleming’s warning has always haunted them. Antibiotic resistance has now become a costly and dangerous problem. Some people fear there may be worse to come: that a strain of resistant bacterium might start an epidemic for which no treatment was available. Yet despite Fleming’s warning and despite a fair understanding of the causes of resistance and how they could be dealt with, dealing with them has proved elusive. Convenience, laziness, perverse financial incentives and sheer bad luck have conspired to nullify almost every attempt to stop the emergence of resistance.
There are good reasons to hope that the extreme threat of a resistant epidemic will never come to pass—not least that 65 years of routine antibiotic use have failed to prompt one. Even so, the lesser problems of resistance continue to gnaw away at medicine, hurting people and diverting resources from more productive uses, often in the countries that can least afford it.
Convenience and laziness top the list of causes of antibiotic resistance. That is because those who misuse these drugs mostly do not pay the...
(Excerpt) Read more at economist.com ...
Have you/your doctors contacted airport officials? CDC? Security,etc?
Hell, I’d write your Congressman over something like that and perhaps contact an attorney.
Good luck to ya!
Incredible! You were one of the few to survive that severe of an attack. So was my mother. I have been trying to find out what strain she had but havent been able to get it yet. Some MRSA strains have a 50% kill rate in the first 30 days.
People really need to get up to speed on this. There was a 14 year old boy in my daughters school who lost his foot from MRSA from a minor footbal injury. Another person I know of lost half their butt from MRSA getting into the muscle. A lot of the transmission aparently comes from the pig meat market. A lot of pig farmers have come down with MRSA. So if your extended families are pig meat eaters....make sure they handle the meat carefully and clean up well.
That’s great. Oh, if any of the “before” outlook on life was depression, do not forget to up your omega 3 fats and lower your omega 6. Eat wild fish twice a week and your mood will really improve. (or take a high quality fish oil,supplement not from china, not from a drug stores cheap brands).
Wow,that is scary. Glad you survived this. The shoe checking is so damn ridiculous.
My gosh, you should wear padded socks before you travel again!
You are absolutely correct.
MRSA sent me to the ER.
Thanks for the story. Never thought about it. Going to make my own using home brew. Can't hoit.
Feel better.
“But colloidal silver is snake oil...”
External use only. Why not just use alcohol?
My mother has suffered a severe bout with C-diff. antibiotics would knock it down temporarily, but it kept coming back. Finally I convinced her to try Vitamin D3 along with Florastor probiotic. 6,000 units a day of D3. It’s working and I wonder why the her doctors never recommended either for the problem.
In this day and age, I can’t believe anyone is ignorant enough to go running to a doctor for an antibiotic for a ‘cold’. And all the doctors that go along with it just to shut them up and look like a hero should be ashamed of themselves. They should not even be considered health care professionals since what they are doing does not qualify as ‘health’ care, but leads to the decrease in everyone’s health and risk of acquiring resistant infection.
Are you on Vancomycin? Some of the newer strains of MRSA are even resistant to that!
I spent over five months in the isolation ward with multidrug-resistant TB while they kept trying new antibiotic regimens that would have an effect on the strain I had. It was not a pleasant experience. Needless to say, I have pretty strong opinions about the abuse of antibiotics.
“I wonder why the her doctors never recommended either for the problem.”
Because it doesn’t put any $$$ in their pockets, maybe.
Superbugs are easily eradeicated with phages instead of antibiotics.
They are a non-issue.
Superbugs are easily eradicated with phages instead of antibiotics.
They are a non-issue.
Thanks for the link.
We might have to go back to sulfa-drugs although there are some cases where side effects can be a problem, especially those with HIV.
I carry it. . .
Yes, twice daily for at-home IV. Have a picc in my arm for this.
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