Post by Swith on May 27, 2016 16:55:11 GMT -4
I'm tired of 'splaining it. This is a reprinted article.
Here's Why Doctors Are So Worried About the New Superbug
by MAGGIE FOX
A much-feared superbug gene has been found for the first time in the United States, and it has health officials very worried.
The gene, called mcr-1, was found in a woman from Pennsylvania who had a bad infection last month. In her case, it was an E. coli bacteria. But scientists say this particular gene can turn up in any bacteria, including strains that are already hard to treat, and that's what's scare. Here are a few things to know about mcr-1:
It spreads badness
Mcr-1 is found on a little piece of DNA called a plasmid, which bacteria can pass very easily from one to another. Plasmids can even be passed between species — a kind of interspecies bacterial sex. Patrick McGann at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research outside Washington, D.C. likens it to a truck. "We refer to them as promiscuous plasmids," McGann said. "This truck comes up and it picks up a load and moves it to another loading dock." In this case the load is a gene that gives bacteria the ability to survive treatment with an important antibiotic. Bacteria are already able to mutate at a blinding rate, but plasmids provide an extra shortcut to mutation.
Staff at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research test the
concerning new bacteria carrying the mcr-1 antibiotic resistance
gene - Walter Reed Army Institute of Research
There's already bad stuff out there
On its own, the mcr-1 gene would not be worrying. It protects bacteria against an antibiotic called colistin, which isn't used much because it damages the kidneys and has to be injected. But colistin is often the only antibiotic that will work against a type of superbug called CRE, for carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae. That's why it's called an antibiotic of last resort. So if a CRE superbug gets hold of mcr-1, whoever is infected with that superbug would have no treatment options. These are all very contagious bacteria, and while the most vulnerable people are the very sick patients in hospitals, anyone could catch one during surgery or even out in public. Methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureas or MRSA, for example, has been found on gym equipment.
If they found it, there's more
Mcr-1 was first spotted in China, and now reports have popped up from all over the world. It's being found in a range of bacteria. So just last month, McGann and his colleagues were asked to start looking for it, too. They found it in the very first sample they tested. "What seems likely is they have been there for years but nobody had tested for it," McGann said. "A lot of experts had suspected that it was in the United States because all these other countries were finding it," agreed Dr. David Hyun, an expert on antibiotic-resistant microbes at the Pew Charitable Trusts.
This one was extra nasty
E. coli is usually a harmless bacteria, found all though the human digestive tract. This sample had been sent to McGann's lab at Walter Reed because it was clearly a superbug of some sort, and the local hospital couldn't figure out what it was. It turns out it was an extended-spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL)-producing E.coli. "They are quite nasty," McGann said. "Usually the only options for treating them is a carbapenem." Luckily, this particular germ could be killed by carbapenems, one of a number of classes of antibiotics. But besides the mcr-1 gene that gave it resistance to colistin, it also had resistance to other classes of antibiotics, including the fluoroquinolones such as ciprofloxacin. "So the truck has been loaded with a total of eight antibiotic resistance genes," McGann said. "It's quite scary."
These things are killing people and there aren't new weapons
Public health experts have been screaming about antibiotic resistance for years. More than two million people in the U.S. are infected by drug-resistant germs each year, and 23,000 die of their infections, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. What the CDC fears is a return to the "pre-antibiotic era," when people died by the millions from infections such as pneumonia or strep throat, from infected cuts and scrapes and after childbirth.
Bacteria develop resistance to drugs quickly. By the time the first antibiotic, penicillin, was introduced in 1943, staphylococcus germs had developed resistance. It only took nine years for a strain of tetracycline-resistant Shigella to evolve after that drug hit the market in 1950. MRSA turned up two years after methicillin's development in 1960.
The last new antibiotic to be introduced was ceftaroline, in the cephalosporin class, in 2010. It took just a year for the first staph germ to emerge that resisted its effects. "Every currently available antibiotic is a derivative of a class discovered between the early 1900s and 1984," Pew's Antibiotic Resistance Project says on its website. Drug companies are reluctant to work on developing new antibiotics because they are not very profitable. President Barack Obama has made fighting antibiotic resistance a priority for his administration, but development of new drugs and tests takes years.
But Swith... I don't wanna be sick.
Who does? Instead of becoming paranoid, become vigilant.
What can I do to reduce the spread of "germs"?
The most important way to reduce the spread of infections is hand washing - always wash regularly with soap and water. See the OSH Answers Hand Washing - Reducing the Risk of Common Infections for more details.
This OSH Answers document will discuss other methods beyond hand washing that can also help to slow or stop the spread of infections.
What are good practices to slow the spread of infections?
Ways you can reduce or slow the spread of infections include:
What about public spaces?
Be on guard. The majority of people do NOT wash their hands after taking a piss. Public restroom handles frequently contain germs. When you wash your hands, turn on the water, use soap, wash, grab a paper towel to dry your hands, then use that towel to turn off the tap. Always wash fruit and veg purchased from a store... think of all the people who have handled it before you did.
Yeah, and wear a mask, right?
Heh. In the event of a pandemic flu, wearing masks when face-to-face with coughing individuals will not be practical or helpful if the infection or virus has entered the community. The average over-the-counter product does not have the "stopping power" of those masks worn by people working in labs. Virus and bacteria are sometimes smaller than the "screen" provided by paper. Think of it this way... a fly can't get through your screen door at home, but tiny gnats pass right through the mesh.
Clean once in a while, for your own sake.
Hard surfaces are ideal for nasty things to lurk on. Sinks, door and cupboard handles, railings, objects, counters, etc. are all good places to pick up germs. The length of time a virus survives on hard surfaces depends on the type of virus. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States indicates that "Most studies have shown that the flu virus can live and potentially infect a person for only 2 to 8 hours after being deposited on a surface." Other estimates range up to 24 and 48 hours.
In most workplaces and homes, cleaning floors, walls, doorknobs, etc. with regular disinfectants or soap and water is very adequate. In some workplaces, such as a hospital or health care facility, specific cleaning and disinfection steps are often required.
If you are in a hospital and see something that doesn't look like it's very clean, bring it to the staff's attention.
Social distancing.
Social distancing is a strategy where you try to avoid crowded places, large gatherings of people or close contact with a group of people. In these situations, viruses can easily spread from person to person. In general, a distance of one meter (3 feet) will slow the spread of a disease, but more distance is more effective.
So, if you're sick (or it's "flu season"), do your best to give people space. And, obviously, if you're sick, cancel or postpone any travel, meetings, workshops, etc. that are not absolutely necessary.
What about holistic medicine?
Check out this article from Harvard Health Publications. I know that some of you swear by holistic medicine. Others roll their eyes. The fact is, the holistic approach, when done scientifically, is very effective.
For example, a multi-vitamin really can do you good (provided you don't have any health issues whereby something in that vitamin will be harmful). Your body needs calcium, iron, potassium and other goodies in order for you to metabolize properly, or for your heart to function. Electrolytes are important stuff. Harvard Health Publications states, "So what can you do? If you suspect your diet is not providing you with all your micronutrient needs — maybe you don’t like vegetables or you choose white bread over whole grains — taking a daily multivitamin and mineral supplement brings health benefits of many types, beyond any possibly beneficial effects on the immune system. Taking megadoses of a single vitamin does not. More is not necessarily better. Researchers are investigating the immune boosting potential of a number of different nutrients."
The best holistic medicine? Sleep. It's how your body keeps on track. Decrease stress... don't sweat the small stuff. Eat a balanced diet. Try to get some exercise each day. And, if you're feeling sick and it doesn't "go away" after a few days, see your doctor. "I don't have time" isn't an excuse.
Here's Why Doctors Are So Worried About the New Superbug
by MAGGIE FOX
A much-feared superbug gene has been found for the first time in the United States, and it has health officials very worried.
The gene, called mcr-1, was found in a woman from Pennsylvania who had a bad infection last month. In her case, it was an E. coli bacteria. But scientists say this particular gene can turn up in any bacteria, including strains that are already hard to treat, and that's what's scare. Here are a few things to know about mcr-1:
It spreads badness
Mcr-1 is found on a little piece of DNA called a plasmid, which bacteria can pass very easily from one to another. Plasmids can even be passed between species — a kind of interspecies bacterial sex. Patrick McGann at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research outside Washington, D.C. likens it to a truck. "We refer to them as promiscuous plasmids," McGann said. "This truck comes up and it picks up a load and moves it to another loading dock." In this case the load is a gene that gives bacteria the ability to survive treatment with an important antibiotic. Bacteria are already able to mutate at a blinding rate, but plasmids provide an extra shortcut to mutation.
Staff at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research test the
concerning new bacteria carrying the mcr-1 antibiotic resistance
gene - Walter Reed Army Institute of Research
There's already bad stuff out there
On its own, the mcr-1 gene would not be worrying. It protects bacteria against an antibiotic called colistin, which isn't used much because it damages the kidneys and has to be injected. But colistin is often the only antibiotic that will work against a type of superbug called CRE, for carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae. That's why it's called an antibiotic of last resort. So if a CRE superbug gets hold of mcr-1, whoever is infected with that superbug would have no treatment options. These are all very contagious bacteria, and while the most vulnerable people are the very sick patients in hospitals, anyone could catch one during surgery or even out in public. Methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureas or MRSA, for example, has been found on gym equipment.
If they found it, there's more
Mcr-1 was first spotted in China, and now reports have popped up from all over the world. It's being found in a range of bacteria. So just last month, McGann and his colleagues were asked to start looking for it, too. They found it in the very first sample they tested. "What seems likely is they have been there for years but nobody had tested for it," McGann said. "A lot of experts had suspected that it was in the United States because all these other countries were finding it," agreed Dr. David Hyun, an expert on antibiotic-resistant microbes at the Pew Charitable Trusts.
This one was extra nasty
E. coli is usually a harmless bacteria, found all though the human digestive tract. This sample had been sent to McGann's lab at Walter Reed because it was clearly a superbug of some sort, and the local hospital couldn't figure out what it was. It turns out it was an extended-spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL)-producing E.coli. "They are quite nasty," McGann said. "Usually the only options for treating them is a carbapenem." Luckily, this particular germ could be killed by carbapenems, one of a number of classes of antibiotics. But besides the mcr-1 gene that gave it resistance to colistin, it also had resistance to other classes of antibiotics, including the fluoroquinolones such as ciprofloxacin. "So the truck has been loaded with a total of eight antibiotic resistance genes," McGann said. "It's quite scary."
These things are killing people and there aren't new weapons
Public health experts have been screaming about antibiotic resistance for years. More than two million people in the U.S. are infected by drug-resistant germs each year, and 23,000 die of their infections, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. What the CDC fears is a return to the "pre-antibiotic era," when people died by the millions from infections such as pneumonia or strep throat, from infected cuts and scrapes and after childbirth.
Bacteria develop resistance to drugs quickly. By the time the first antibiotic, penicillin, was introduced in 1943, staphylococcus germs had developed resistance. It only took nine years for a strain of tetracycline-resistant Shigella to evolve after that drug hit the market in 1950. MRSA turned up two years after methicillin's development in 1960.
The last new antibiotic to be introduced was ceftaroline, in the cephalosporin class, in 2010. It took just a year for the first staph germ to emerge that resisted its effects. "Every currently available antibiotic is a derivative of a class discovered between the early 1900s and 1984," Pew's Antibiotic Resistance Project says on its website. Drug companies are reluctant to work on developing new antibiotics because they are not very profitable. President Barack Obama has made fighting antibiotic resistance a priority for his administration, but development of new drugs and tests takes years.
But Swith... I don't wanna be sick.
Who does? Instead of becoming paranoid, become vigilant.
What can I do to reduce the spread of "germs"?
The most important way to reduce the spread of infections is hand washing - always wash regularly with soap and water. See the OSH Answers Hand Washing - Reducing the Risk of Common Infections for more details.
This OSH Answers document will discuss other methods beyond hand washing that can also help to slow or stop the spread of infections.
What are good practices to slow the spread of infections?
Ways you can reduce or slow the spread of infections include:
- Get the appropriate vaccine.
Vaccines will not make you stupid, turn your children into blithering idiots, turn you into a monster, or cause you to glow in the dark. - Wash your hands frequently, especially after using a restroom.
- Stay the fuck home if you are sick (so you do not spread the illness to other people).
You don't know who you'll encounter. Your simple bout of flu might spread to someone in the grocery store... a person recovering from cancer treatments, or with an otherwise compromised immune system. - Use a tissue, or cough and sneeze into your arm, not your hand. Turn away from other people.
Don't believe sneezes are a bit deal? Check this out. - Use single-use tissues. Dispose of the tissue immediately.
If you're in bed, keep a plastic grocery bag nearby and stuff them into that. - Wash your hands after coughing, sneezing or using tissues.
Please. - If working with children, have them play with hard surface toys that can be easily cleaned.
Take Clorox wipes to the toys at the end of the day, and set them someplace to dry. - Do not touch your eyes, nose or mouth (viruses can transfer from your hands and into the body).
- Do not share cups, glasses, dishes or cutlery.
- Don't share a bong or joint.
What about public spaces?
Be on guard. The majority of people do NOT wash their hands after taking a piss. Public restroom handles frequently contain germs. When you wash your hands, turn on the water, use soap, wash, grab a paper towel to dry your hands, then use that towel to turn off the tap. Always wash fruit and veg purchased from a store... think of all the people who have handled it before you did.
Yeah, and wear a mask, right?
Heh. In the event of a pandemic flu, wearing masks when face-to-face with coughing individuals will not be practical or helpful if the infection or virus has entered the community. The average over-the-counter product does not have the "stopping power" of those masks worn by people working in labs. Virus and bacteria are sometimes smaller than the "screen" provided by paper. Think of it this way... a fly can't get through your screen door at home, but tiny gnats pass right through the mesh.
Clean once in a while, for your own sake.
Hard surfaces are ideal for nasty things to lurk on. Sinks, door and cupboard handles, railings, objects, counters, etc. are all good places to pick up germs. The length of time a virus survives on hard surfaces depends on the type of virus. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States indicates that "Most studies have shown that the flu virus can live and potentially infect a person for only 2 to 8 hours after being deposited on a surface." Other estimates range up to 24 and 48 hours.
In most workplaces and homes, cleaning floors, walls, doorknobs, etc. with regular disinfectants or soap and water is very adequate. In some workplaces, such as a hospital or health care facility, specific cleaning and disinfection steps are often required.
If you are in a hospital and see something that doesn't look like it's very clean, bring it to the staff's attention.
Social distancing.
Social distancing is a strategy where you try to avoid crowded places, large gatherings of people or close contact with a group of people. In these situations, viruses can easily spread from person to person. In general, a distance of one meter (3 feet) will slow the spread of a disease, but more distance is more effective.
So, if you're sick (or it's "flu season"), do your best to give people space. And, obviously, if you're sick, cancel or postpone any travel, meetings, workshops, etc. that are not absolutely necessary.
What about holistic medicine?
Check out this article from Harvard Health Publications. I know that some of you swear by holistic medicine. Others roll their eyes. The fact is, the holistic approach, when done scientifically, is very effective.
For example, a multi-vitamin really can do you good (provided you don't have any health issues whereby something in that vitamin will be harmful). Your body needs calcium, iron, potassium and other goodies in order for you to metabolize properly, or for your heart to function. Electrolytes are important stuff. Harvard Health Publications states, "So what can you do? If you suspect your diet is not providing you with all your micronutrient needs — maybe you don’t like vegetables or you choose white bread over whole grains — taking a daily multivitamin and mineral supplement brings health benefits of many types, beyond any possibly beneficial effects on the immune system. Taking megadoses of a single vitamin does not. More is not necessarily better. Researchers are investigating the immune boosting potential of a number of different nutrients."
The best holistic medicine? Sleep. It's how your body keeps on track. Decrease stress... don't sweat the small stuff. Eat a balanced diet. Try to get some exercise each day. And, if you're feeling sick and it doesn't "go away" after a few days, see your doctor. "I don't have time" isn't an excuse.