methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA)

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Experts Warn Of Antimicrobial Resistance, Additional Threats To National Biosecurity

Claudia Adrien | Homeland Preparedness News | June 28, 2019

Dr. Asha George...was among a panel of experts testifying about the state of U.S. preparedness for biological attacks and infectious disease pandemics. The experts agreed that a range of factors affect our country's ability to fight these threats, including weakened or fragmented federal oversight, limited incentives for research and development, and a lack of preparedness at the local level to protect vulnerable populations. "In short, the nation is not prepared for biological outbreaks, acts of bioterrorism, biological warfare of accidental releases with catastrophic consequences," George said. "We are talking about catastrophic events that affect the function of our entire society."

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'Nightmare Bacteria' Spread In Southeast

Laura Ungar | USA Today | July 31, 2014

Superbugs known as CRE — called "nightmare bacteria" by federal health officials because they are deadly and virtually untreatable — are skyrocketing in the Southeastern USA, new research shows...

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A New Drug In The Age Of Antibiotic Resistance

Cari Romm | The Atlantic | January 7, 2015

Two alarming figures from a report released last month by the U.K. government: By 2050, antibiotic resistance will cost the world a projected 10 million lives and $8 trillion each year...

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Aged Care Facilities Nurturing Superbugs [Australia]

John Elder | The Age Victoria | October 5, 2014

Nursing home residents appear to be significant carriers of superbug infections into hospitals, potentially putting other patients at risk.  This is the latest finding in a series of Monash University studies that have investigated management of infection in Melbourne's aged care facilities, and the over-prescription of antibiotics to residents...

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Almost Three Times The Risk Of Carrying MRSA From Living Near A Mega-Farm

Maryn McKenna | Wired | January 22, 2014

In the long fight over antibiotic use in agriculture, one of the most contentious points is whether the resistant bacteria that inevitably arise can move off the farm to affect humans. [...] So whenever a research team can link resistant bacteria found in humans with farms that are close to those humans, it is an important contribution to the debate. Read More »

Antibiotic Effective Against Drug-Resistant Bacteria in Pediatric Skin Infections

Press Release | University of California | February 16, 2017

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a bacterial scourge. As its name suggests, MRSA is resistant to most common antibiotics and thus difficult to treat, particularly in children where it commonly causes complicated skin and skin structure infections. In a randomized, controlled clinical trial -- the first of its kind -- a multi-institution research team reports that daptomycin, part of a new class of antibiotics currently approved only for use in adults, is effective and well-tolerated in children. The findings are published in the March 2017 issue of Pediatrics...

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Antibiotic Resistance Doesn't Just Make Bacteria Harder To Kill – It Can Actually Make Them Stronger

Bacteria can become drug-resistant in two ways – resistance can be natural, meaning that the genes conferring resistance are already present in the bacterial chromosome, or they can be acquired through mutation or by picking up antibiotic-resistance genes from other microbes. It is now possible to use new DNA-sequencing technologies to take a closer look at how the antibiotic resistance can make some bacteria weaker or stronger. And in a new study, we found that – contrary to conventional wisdom around antibiotics – resistance can actually make some bacteria fitter and even more virulent.

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Antibiotic Resistance Warnings Remain Unheeded, Experts Say

Lynne Peeples | Huffington Post Green | October 9, 2014

...Just as incurable viruses gain new footholds around the world, a growing number of bacterial infections that were once easily treatable are now withstanding modern medicine's arsenal of antibiotics. Twenty-three thousand Americans die from antibiotic-resistant pathogens every year...

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Antibiotic-Brined Chicken amd Other Bad Ideas from US Farming

Megan Molteni | Wired | September 6, 2017

These days, the only thing more American than apple pie is eating an animal raised on antibiotics. Eighty percent of antibiotics sold in the US go not to human patients, but to the nation’s plate-bound pigs, cows, turkeys, and chickens. As these wonder drugs became a mainstay of modern agriculture, factory farms began churning out another, far less welcome commodity—antibiotic resistant bacteria. These deadly new microbial threats are expected to claim the lives of 10 million people by 2050. How did this happen? And where does it end?...

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Antibiotics: Medical City’s Unhealthy Strain

Pushpa Narayan | The Times of India | October 9, 2014

...Chennai has been at the center of recent controversies over the use of antibiotics. The seminal 2010 Lancet paper that identified the emergence of superbugs resistant to a variety of antibiotics found that the superbugs came from Chennai and Hyderabad...

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As If the Killer Got Away

Deborah J. Nelson, Yasmeen Abutaleb and Ryan McNeill | Reuters | September 7, 2016

In a more than yearlong investigation, Reuters used court records, news reports, patient advocacy organizations and Web searches to identify individuals who had died of antibiotic-resistant infections and then contacted relatives to obtain death certificates and medical records. In some cases, the death certificate did not mention the lethal infection. In many others, it did, but the death occurred in a state that doesn’t track the infections. Even in states that do track some superbug deaths, none are counted nationally, in real time, in any unified surveillance system...

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Beyond Antibiotics: A New Weapon Against Superbugs Shows Promise Share On Facebook Share On Twitter Share On Google Plus Share Via Email More Options

Ariana Eunjung Cha | The Washington Post | November 6, 2014

Over the past decade, the problem of deadly, drug-resistant superbugs has become a global crisis, outpacing new countermeasures and threatening to bring patient care back to beginning of the 20th century. These bugs are now responsible for 23,000 deaths and 2 million illnesses a year in the United States alone...

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Biodefense Takes Center Stage at House Oversight Hearing

Jack Rodgers | Courthouse News Service | June 26, 2019

Is the nation ready to defend against antibiotic-resistant diseases or bioterrorism? What would the response to a biological attack or disease pandemic look like? Those threats and the collaboration of private, federal and local agencies to respond to them were the focus of a hearing Wednesday in the House Oversight Subcommittee on National Security on biodefense preparedness. Congressman Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., said at the beginning of the hearing that around 2.4 million people could die in high-income countries between 2015 and 2050 without an effort to contain antimicrobial resistance, according to an April report to the Secretary-General of the United Nations.

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Breeding Bacteria On Factory Farms

Mark Bittman | New York Times | July 9, 2013

The story of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in farm animals is not a simple one. But here’s the pitch version: Yet another study has reinforced the idea that keeping animals in confinement and feeding them antibiotics prophylactically breeds varieties of bacteria that cause disease in humans, disease that may not readily be treated by antibiotics... Read More »

Definitive Link Confirms Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria Transmits From Livestock To Humans

Press Release | Congresswoman Louise M. Slaughter | March 28, 2013

Today, Congresswoman Louise Slaughter (NY-25), the only microbiologist in Congress, reacted to a new study that conclusively identified transmission of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) from livestock to humans. Currently, MRSA kills more Americans each year than HIV/AIDS. Read More »