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Food Safety News How CDC Uses Antibiotic Resistance Data Food Safety News Over the past year, you may have noticed that antimicrobial resistance information has been incorporated in the outbreak reports put out by the Centers for Disease Control... 
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New WHO report provides the most comprehensive picture of antibiotic resistance to date, with data from 114 countries
Phillip Trotter's insight:
Resistance to antibiotics poses a "major global threat" to public health, says a new report by the World Health Organization (WHO). The WHO team analysed data from 114 countries and said resistance was happening now "in every region of the world". The report describes a "post-antibiotic era", where people die from simple infections that have been treatable for decades.
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We cannot say we weren't warned. The growing threat of antibiotic resistant organisms is once again in the spotlight. Prof Jeremy Farrar, the new head of Britain's biggest medical research charity the Wellcome Trust said it was a "truly global issue". In his first major interview since taking up his post, Prof Farrar told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that the golden age of antibiotics could come to an end unless action is taken
Phillip Trotter's insight:
Prof. Farrar's comments echo those of England's Chief Medical Officer - Sally Davies and the US's Center for Disease Control. As the BBC report shows - warnings regarding the state of anti-biotic effectiveness and bacterial resistance and potential impact started occuring in government circles in the mid 1990's. The World Health Assembly of the WHO will discuss the issue in May 2014.
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This report, Antibiotic resistance threats in the United States, 2013gives a first-ever snapshot of the burden and threats posed by the antibiotic-resistant germs having the most impact on human health. Each year in the United States, at least 2 million people become infected with bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics and at least 23,000 people die each year as a direct result of these infections. Many more people die from other conditions that were complicated by an antibiotic-resistant infection.
Phillip Trotter's insight:
For those tracking public healthcare issues or modeling disease the new Antibiotic Resistance Threats in the United States from CDC makes chilling reading. The CDC report is the first time the agency has provided hard numbers for the incidence, deaths and cost of all the major antibiotic resistant organisms. The report is also the first time the CDC has ranked resistant organisms by how imminent a threat they pose, using seven criteria: health impact, economic impact, how common the infection is, how easily it spreads, how much further it might spread in the next 10 years, whether there are antibiotics that still work against it, and whether things other than administering antibiotics can be done to curb its spread. For each organism, the report explains why it is a public health threat, where the trends are headed, what actions the CDC is taking, and what it is important for health care institutions, patients and their families, and states and local authorities to do to help. It also makes explicit where the trend of increasing and more common resistance is taking the country, outlining the risks to people taking chemotherapy for cancer, undergoing surgery, taking dialysis, receiving transplants, and undergoing treatment for rheumatoid arthritis.
Michael Totten's comment,
September 23, 2013 12:29 AM
One thing we all should be doing is avoid using any of the anti-microbial soaps that now found around every faucet. The triclosan in the soap kills off all the benign bacterial, creating a vacuum for the more virulent bacteria to thrive. It's a commercial gimmick that should be resisted and reversed. See the medical advice posted at Alliance for Prudent use of Antibiotics, http://www.tufts.edu/med/apua/ and particularly the White Paper on Triclosan, http://www.tufts.edu/med/apua/consumers/personal_home_21_4240495089.pdf
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Health officials are watching in horror as bacteria become resistant to powerful carbapenem antibiotics — one of the last drugs on the shelf.
Phillip Trotter's insight:
As antibiotic resistance continues to evolve and spread - it continues to not get the attention and funding it needs. Research work is urgently needed in new treatments but also in how bacteria, evolve, transport and move in and around hospitals, how they communicate, and how to optimize standard infection-control practices. Good article from Nature. scary reality.
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From
medium
A few years ago, I started looking online to fill in chapters of my family history that no one had ever spoken of.
Phillip Trotter's insight:
Maryn McKenna has consistenly written about the threat of increasing antibiotic resistance for some time and her articles in Wired and other media are worth finding and reading. This is her long form essay on medium, it covers some of the same ground as her other articles it is still very much but its worth reading and reflecting on.
Eli Levine's curator insight,
April 30, 2014 8:41 PM
It seems that we are about to get closer to death, as our antibiotics, pesticides, herbicides and all other methods of cheating death, disease and crop failure fail.
This is before we get into conversations about the looming international and intranational conflicts that are simmering beneath the surface. At least these can be dealt with with sensible policy changes and changes in attitude, perspective and disposition, if not out right content in our leadership cadres.
But alas, I don't see that happening in the foreseeable future.
Time is ticking away.
And we too will go through an indiscriminate die off phase where friends and family will die off, along with enemies and pestilential people as well.
I'd like to think that we'd come off better than before.
But, that's the thing about these indiscriminate methods of killing large swaths of the population. It very rarely yields anything other than what was already present.
At least wages should be better, due to the new shortage of laborers (assuming that robots haven't taken over our labor force in the meantime).
I'd like to think that our lot is constantly improving, even during these negative phases.
But, I know that it's not going to be easy, especially for most of our Western and American population who don't have experience handling these kinds of things.
Ah well.
Think about it.
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"Superbug" bacterial infections that are resistant to common antibiotics are increasing at an alarming rate. But traditional antibiotics aren't the only way to battle dangerous germs. Biomedical scientists are investigating new additions to their arsenal.
Phillip Trotter's insight:
Given the WHO announcement that antibacterial resistance is now a global threat - article on popular mechanic outlines some of the alternate treatments to antibiotics.
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A few years ago, I started looking online to fill in chapters of my family history that no one had ever spoken of.
Phillip Trotter's insight:
Maryn McKenna has been writing a number of articulate well informed and frankly terrifying articles in Wired on the rise of drug resistant antibiotics and their societal implications. This 4000 word essay on medium is certainly worth reading and explains her personal interest in the subject.
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Globally, antimicrobial drug resistance is rapidly rising, with resultant increased illness and death. In Europe, increasing proportions of bloodstream infections caused by E. coli are resistant to third-generation cephalosporins...
Phillip Trotter's insight:
Antibiotic use in agriculture tends to be a tension filled debate. Farmers want healthy stock and the use of antibiotics as with people has had a major impact. However use of antiobiotics in farming helps accelerate bacterial evolution and antibiotic resistance. The debate around antibiotic overuse on farms or over perscription in human medicine and the relation to antibiotic-resistant bacteria, how antibiotic resistant strains migrate from farms to elswhere is ongoing. The human and financial impact and cost of antiobiotic overuse in agriculture has until now been a grey area of discussion. A multi-national team of researchers recently published their findings to these questions in the open journal Emerging Infectious disease published by CDC. They found number of avoidable deaths and the costs of health care potentially caused by third-generation cephalosporin use in food animals is a staggering 1,518 deaths and 67,236 days in the hospital, every year, which would not otherwise have occurred. Considering those factors, they recommend the ongoing use of these antimicrobial drugs in mass therapy and prophylaxis should be urgently examined and stopped, particularly in poultry. The article and technical appendix are worth reading.
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CDC are one fo the organisations leading information release on antimicrobial resistance. This article explaines where to find out more info from CDC on this area. Worth reading.