A pig flying at the Minnesota state fair. Picture by TCS. I've been involved in a few discussions of late on science-based sites around yon web on antibiotic resistance and agriculture--specifically, the campaign to get fast food giant Subway to stop using meat raised on antibiotics, and a graphic by CommonGround using Animal Health Institute data, suggesting that agricultural animals aren't an important source of resistant bacteria. Discussing these topics has shown me there's a lot of misunderstanding of issues in antibiotic resistance, even among those who consider themselves pretty science-savvy. I think this is partly an issue of, perhaps, hating to agree with one's "enemy." Vani Hari, the "Food Babe," recently also plugged the Subway campaign, perhaps making skeptics now skeptical of the issue of antibiotics and agriculture? Believe me, I am the farthest thing from a "Food Babe" fan and have criticized her many times on my Facebook page, but unlike her ill-advised and … [Read more...] about Antibiotic resistance: myths and misunderstandings
Antibiotics making me sick
A Celebration of the Sick Day
Sections SEARCH Skip to content Skip to site index Live Subscribe Log In Log In Today’s Paper Supported by Ducking under the weather gives me permission to excuse myself from life and curl up in a sunspot. BySophia Ortega Nov. 8, 2018 From a young age, I learned that sick is comfort; sick is to be cared for. When I stayed home with an earache in second grade, my dad didn’t double-check my homework or make me practice piano exercises twice on each hand. He brought me a bell so I could ring him and gave me three M&Ms for every dose of antibiotics that went down without a fuss. Undoubtedly, my penchant for minor ailments comes from a place of privilege. My physical body is healthy, which is why its occasional maladies have become phenomena that I get to relish. I recognize that chronic illness is another story, of course. But when I feel a cold coming on, I don’t stir Emergen-C and up my citrus intake, I lean in. … [Read more...] about A Celebration of the Sick Day
Locked up for being sick: Prisoners recount their experience
Updated 4:27 AM ET, Thu June 28, 2018 (CNN)Gideon Wanjohi was arrested in 2015 and sentenced to two years in prison in his hometown in Kirinyaga County in central Kenya. His crime: not taking his pills. The year before, Wanjohi was diagnosed with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis and immediately prescribed a treatment spanning almost two years. This level of resistance means the bacteria that cause the infection are resistant to at least two of the most powerful anti-TB drugs, isoniazid and rifampin. Wanjohi was required to take more than 10 large tablets a day, in addition to daily injections of kanamycin, he said, which made his feet swell until he could no longer walk at times. Read More The injection in particular was painful, he said, and made him dizzy and nauseated. The treatment was prescribed for 20 months, but two months in, he stopped taking it at all. Two weeks after that, he was arrested. Public health officials arrived at his mother's home at 7 a.m., just … [Read more...] about Locked up for being sick: Prisoners recount their experience
Survivor of near-fatal tick bite has a lesson for summer
Story highlights An Ohio woman contracted a serious infection from a tick bite Potentially deadly diseases from ticks and mosquitoes are on the rise Waverly, Ohio (CNN)On the eve of Memorial Day weekend, Jennifer Slone wants you to know that bug bites are more than just itchy. They can be deadly. And they're pretty easy to avoid. For two weeks last summer, Slone, a librarian from Waverly, Ohio, languished in the hospital as doctors struggled to get her fever down from over 104 degrees. She developed meningitis. Her liver was suffering. She became septic, an infection raging through her bloodstream. She needed three blood transfusions. Slone had ehrlichiosis, a bacterial infection from a tick bite. Tick- and mosquito-borne diseases more than triple, since 2004, in the US "I was petrified," said her husband, Nick. "I thought this was it, this was the end." Read More Slone did survive and, after 11 days in the hospital, much of which she doesn't remember, was able … [Read more...] about Survivor of near-fatal tick bite has a lesson for summer
Giving Antibiotics To Healthy Kids In Poor Countries: Good Idea Or Bad Idea?
Facebook Twitter Flipboard Email Enlarge this image Azithromycin tablets. Dhiraj Singh/Bloomberg via Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Dhiraj Singh/Bloomberg via Getty Images Azithromycin tablets. Dhiraj Singh/Bloomberg via Getty Images Every day, 15,000 children five years old or younger die of preventable conditions diarrhea and pneumonia. In 2016, that number added up to 5.6 million children, most of them in the developing world, according to the World Health Organization. What if a simple intervention could save tens of thousands of those children? Seems like a no-brainer — unless the method used to save them puts tens of thousands of others at risk in the future. That's the dilemma presented by a paper published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine. Researchers enrolled 190,238 healthy children and, over a period of two years, gave half of them four doses of the antibiotic azithromycin and half of them a placebo. The … [Read more...] about Giving Antibiotics To Healthy Kids In Poor Countries: Good Idea Or Bad Idea?