In the Age of the Superbugs: What Is the Remedy?

Ooops, got my metaphor wrong. This would not be a Faustian bargain at all. More like an avoidance-avoidance conflict.

"Good science doesn't manipulate the facts only discovers and presents them. The forces of nature are essentially neutral and always working to establish balance and order among themselves."

Well-said. And I would add that the thing that separates science from other ways of knowing is that ultimately you have to test your ideas against some observable reality. The reason that science as a method puts so much emphasis on methodological rigor is not because people (and all scientists are people) are not biased but because we know for sure that we are biased. When I create a hypothesis about how some process works, I can't kid myself that at some level I *want* my hypothesis to be correct. I therefore apply the strictest and best experimental protocol I can devise and I interpret my results without giving myself the benefit of the doubt (ie. I use null hypothesis). Most importantly, I given my work to others who go over it with a fine-tooth comb, looking for errors. I do all this because, ultimately, I want to arrive at the best answer, not the one that I think is right.

As to whether scientific knowledge is a force for good or ill, it's both. The example about toxic chemicals being used to suppress mosquitos is a good one (BTW, Hi SiouxRose, hope you are well!). The effects of DDT were very hard on ecosystems, but it cannot be denied that DDT also saved millions of lives through the suppression of malaria. Now that DDT is banned in many places, malaria is making a bit of a comeback (for a lot of reasons, I understand, but changes in vector control are among those reasons). In my own experience, vector control efforts in Paraguay (a country where I do research) were hampered because the government chose not to deploy some very effective but toxic mosquito suppressants. As a results, there were around 50,000 cases of dengue fever. More environmentally sound mosquito controls methods are being developed, but right now they simply don't work as well. So, we have the Faustian bargain -- any decision we make will have negative consequences. I believe this is true of many environmental issues. Fixing one problem produces another.

The remedy for super bugs is to get rid of the system that created them: orthodox medicines use of antibiotics!
There are plenty of safe alternatives that DONT create superbugs....thats because they dont use orthodoxies methods..which is to attack nature...Nature will always be smarter and figth back.

The superbug label is tongue-in-cheek writing.

I lived in tropical Africa where you don't need a prescription to get ABx by the pill or by the course. It's happy hunting for the germs. We, humanity, are shooting ourselves in the foot with greed and capitalism. If the advancements of science were never turned into businesses in the first place, and these ABx had been used correctly around the world, then we might not have to worry about supergerms catching up to our efforts.

Anyhow, the guy is also right about us being victims of the media. Most people believe what they read in the newspaper. Why should they expect their cultural wellspring of info to lie to them? How sad.

There needs to some repercussion for media outlets that abuse our trust! If we could bring back a new and improved Fairness Doctrine with bigger and badder teeth to punish any journalist (Rush Limbaugh) who has been legally warned not to spread any lie as if it were the truth, then we could once again believe what the media tells us. We need to bring credibility to our media.

After the Iraq WMD fiasco, there were zero consequences! All of the same lying journalists, who wrote verbatim whatever the lying Bush administration said, are still lying to us every day! That is absurd and will be this country's downfall.

The CIA and RAND corp and all of those bastards use US tax dollars to research the collective mind of We the People, in order to use propaganda against us! It's over for America, unless we revolt against these abuses!

Everybody calm down!

Heathen writes: Oh, yeah: ezeflyer, you make the claim that the scientific method is "the best method for understanding nature". That statement depends entirely upon one's own definition of the two words "understand" and "nature".

I'm with ezflyer, Heathen. Good science doesn't manipulate the facts only discovers and presents them. The forces of nature are essentially neutral and always working to establish balance and order among themselves. The purpose of science is to measure and quantify these "forces." As we all know, these forces can be used for both construction and destruction, and this leaves them open to exploitation. Because the power structures of the world are based upon ego, exploitation is the rule, rather than the exception. The result is that the findings of science are manipulated by corporations and governments for power and profit, and they obfuscate the truth about the scientific facts they wish to obscure--with the cooperation of unscrupulous and/or frightened scientists, of course. Further, the media helps promote corporate agendas with irresponsible reporting. That's why many believe, for example, that there is no good evidence that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer. With respect to drugs, pharmaceutical companies push "medicines" that make them the most money, and are obviously not interested in cheaply preventing disease or curing it. In Heathen's defense, there has been scientific research confirming the health benefits of garlic. Unfortunately, the lack of truth in scientific reporting and general mistrust of the public allows belief and superstition to creep in, which leaves the door open for a lot of quackery. For profit scientific research is naturally biased in a certain direction and given to suppression of contradictory findings. That's why it shouldn't be entirely the domain of the private sector, but that is another matter.

Medical science has done much to alleviate human suffering and increase the average lifespan but, in many countries, has become a two-tiered system: one for the poor and one for the rich. This is a big part of why certain diseases are on the rise again, and coming back with a vengeance.

Bostonbound2 writes:

"Geeze even the ruling class may not be immune to these bugs."

This reminds me of Poe's story "The Masque of the Red Death," where Prince Prospero (Dubya) and his company of wealthy revelers (the Haves and Have mores) hold a big party, erroneously thinking they're immune from the pestilence rocking the countryside. Let the poor go to hell, this is our party!

Think you might need an antibiotic? Use garlic instead. Fresh, raw garlic, one tablespoon three times per day (for a 150 pound adult) after meals. Five days ought to do it, go a little longer if you think it's necessary.

Garlic is antibacterial, antifungal, and antiviral. Sure, you'll reek of it on the third day, but would you rather reek from healing or from rotting? (We will now conveniently ignore the fact that bowel movements from the third day onward will make you want to jump and run with no regard for cleanliness...)

If after two or three days you don't feel that you're getting better, you can still go to the allopathic pill pusher. His FDA approved poisons probably won't do any better a job, but you'll feel better just knowing that some clown who never took a culture to determine what's wrong with you has prescribed a powerful drug regardless of whether or not it has any chance at all of having an effect upon the nasty critter that's making you feel rotten.

Oh, yeah: ezeflyer, you make the claim that the scientific method is "the best method for understanding nature". That statement depends entirely upon one's own definition of the two words "understand" and "nature". I am not anti-science by any stretch of the imagination, but I believe it's obvious by now that we have reached the point at which our knowledge far exceeds our understanding and the result of this gap is clearly a threat to all living things on Earth. Some aspects of the universe defy quantization. Some things must be experienced ("felt") to be understood, and that understanding cannot be reduced to formulae.

Siouxrose said:

"GREENER THAN THOU: Great point! And those who are so pro-science ought to read it, since all these new drugs (antibiotics and such) mess with nature and often speed up natural selection among those entities that threaten human existence."

I'm one of those that are pro-science. Though I appreciate your posts, I have to say that I profoundly disagree with anti-science people. Being against the scientific method, the best method for understanding nature, makes less sense to me than a war on terror. Why are we in conflict when whether it's science, religion or mysticism, it's conservatives who use them for evil purposes?

Evolution continues, except for most humans who seem to be getting more ignorant and more out of touch with reality.

Geeze even the ruling class may not be immune to these bugs.

If GW doesn't start WWIII, if we don't run out of everything (natural resources), if we don't destroy the planet with climate change, if we don't over-populate ourselves to death; we might have to worry about these bugs.

Little teeny predators which multiply fast might sometimes be as successful as big fat slow ruthless predators, like Cheney et al.

Morality and justice (and peace and safety) have always been just a few of many illusions.

Plants make food from the sun, everything else lives by killing and stealing.
Soylent Green

Chessgame56, You are right about Laurie Garrett's book talking about this in the mid 1990's. If you liked, "The Coming Plague" you should follow up with, "Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health."

Certainly overuse of antibiotics is implicated in the _evolution_ of MRSA.

In public health, there is an old but useful idea that talks about infectious problems being a function of the agent (the bug), the host (the patient) and the environment. Usually all three interact somehow to create an effective mileau for a bug to cause infection. I think Laurie Garrett quotes someone who talks about, "...just an honest bug trying to make a living..."

The problems that have led to superbugs are not simple and will not be solved simplisticly. Garrett, in "Betrayal of Trust" talks about America's propensity to overfund curative health care and underfund public health as a key reason of why so many strange things are happening.

Until Americans start to think rationalely about health care as a limited resource that everyone is entitled to in some measure and sees unglamorous public health as a proposal that has the best bang for the buck, we're probably NOT going to make headway.

One thing is sure, get past thinking of health care that is everything to everyone. Start thinking about essentials of health care.

Check out Antoine Bechamp and the science of us rotting from within. These superbugs cannot harm a terrain that is alkaline and balanced. Tells us something about how compromised we are from a century of western medicine masking symptoms and not healing

This is nothing new. In 1995 Laurie Garret published a tome called "The Coming Plague," where she cited many instances of developing bacterial and viral resistance. This was largely preventable she said and was/is in great part do to the lacing of animal feeds and the over-prescribing of antibiotics by doctors. Another factor was patients not finishing the full course of their antibiotic prescriptions. Until the recent report, many were unaware that there was a strain of staph bacteria resistant to just about everything, and that vancomycin was the last antibiotic that could treat it. Now there are even some strains resistant to vancomycin. Chloramphenicol was successful in treating it in some cases, but this antibiotic is very dangerous and has been know to cause a fatal blood disorder called an aplastic anemia (I know my sister died from it years ago). Presumably, it is just a matter of time until other kinds of bacteria follow suit and no longer respond the antibiotics now available. With so much concentration on finding a cure for cancer, is this vital research being underfunded? Time will tell.

The connection is the super bug of delusion that leads us to think that we have no choice no impact or no connection yet we are all of one life force with our mother earth; what we do to her or the poor man we do to ourselves.

Consider that each thought becomes a choice and each action leads to another action such as the law of cause and effect which is best lived out in trying to do no harm.

We can continue complaining or we can become part of the solution; if we each acknowledged our role in shared betterment, it would happen. The system will continue to slip out of balance if men continue to seek profit at the expense of even their souls/conscience whatever word will not cause more denial, or we may well realize that integrity is more than skin deep and respond accordingly.

cut your fingernails and wash your hands with soap!

EPIGENETICS

PBS recently had a show on epigentics. The first impression was either this is old news and I missed something, or this should be all over the headlines and it's not.

It means essentially that genes can be turned on and off by the environment - in one person's lifetime. Before epigentics, all the gene switches were considered fixed from birth and changed again only with new birth in someone else.

Astounding. As demonstrated in the show, it means one's non-dominant recessive genes can be triggered to whatever they are not now - on or off. So if a gene is "off" and it needs to be "on" to suppress a particular form of cancer, certain chemicals can induce the same. It was done with a cancer patient on the show.

That means all the genes in ones body - dominant and non-dominant are potential candidates for reversal. It also means that the thousands of things one has consumed and been exposed to may have switched certain genes on or off in people.

They proved it with identical twins that differed dramatically in certain areas but had exact DNA chromosomes.

So all those good things people have been doing and consuming for their health may have had more effect than realized, and vice versa for the bad things.

Go Darwin, even in a lifetime.

I tell people these days, that seem to want to stick their heads in the sand, when confronted by seemingly unsolvable problems facing humanity. That sticking their heads in the sand, is not really a good idea, because it leaves your ass exposed!

GREENER THAN THOU: Great point! And those who are so pro-science ought to read it, since all these new drugs (antibiotics and such) mess with nature and often speed up natural selection among those entities that threaten human existence.

There was a mosquito spraying program that went on in Puerto Rico while I lived there. The statistics were published for how much mosquito populations were reduced by spraying the dangerous chemical, Malathion.

The statistics went from 47-51% meaning on average, HALF the bugs survived, and most would then pass their immunity onto THEIR offspring. This vicious cycle necessitated the use of higher dosages of malathion, and so it went. These chemicals wash back into the water table and NOW are part of us. Like 200 of them, the test to gauge this is called, "body burden."

Better living through chemistry? Hardly. We have to work WITH nature... killing everything with this poison or that gun or the next bomb NEVER creates the thing sought. EVER.

""Waritis" is a political problem caused by 7 years of the wrong party entrusted with leadership."

Give it a break, will ya?! We've been fooled by your fucking party too goddamn many times!

"So where should we start in combating these many superbug menaces?"

Eradicate the Republican/Democrat Party System. It is the worst infectious disease of all.

Eradicate the words freedom, democracy, free-trade, free-enterprise, terror, terrorism, terrorist.

Eradicate the phrases "support the troops", homeland security, drug-war, Islamo-fascism

Then a discussion of some substance might have a chance of beginning.

Just a strictly medical note:

Keep your body's immune system strong.
(Anti-biotic is abreviated here as ABx)

ABx-resistant superbugs are a very real and growing threat, especially in so-callled advanced western countries which increasingly allow saturation of meat/poultry/farmed fish, etc. with ABx's, thus producing ABx-resistant strains of bacteria, parasites, etc.

[ABx overuse/over-exposure causes ABx-resistant genes to get selected-out for survival in succeeding bacterial generations -- thus creating 'superbugs.']

If you get infected by a ABx-resistant bacterial strain, it's harder (sometimes impossible) to kill the bugs with ABx's, increasingly producing death in older humans whose immune systems are aged.

Added to this food over-exposure source, home & personal care products with Triclosan and similar anti-bacterial chemicals are also staurated with industrial anti-bacterials --even new clothes are now being saturated with these chemicals, made to stay actively anti-bacterial for up to 50 machine washings.

As with the over-use of pesticides and GMO's, Industry doesn't care about the longer-range problems it is causing for human & biosphere health. Industry cares almost-exclusively about profits and,just like cigarettes or lead-basedpaint, is willing to risk poisoning andd/or killing consumers until forced to stop.

There are several natural ways of keeping your immume system (cell-mediated immunity) strong, so infections are less likely to take hold and require ABx's. You can read-up on all this, using Google searches. But beyond good diet and exercise, beware many products promising immune enhancement, which are hyped with the same kind of bogus science as Dow, Inc. hypes it 'safe' pesticides.

The medical schools of Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and University of Washington have good websites that talk about safe ways to, & some commercial diet supplements that, help boost human immuno-competence.

Libertarians like to say that Industry and the profit motive have dramatically improved human heath & longevity. No doubt True is some instances. But these same forces are just as responsible for harming human heath in entirely new and horrific ways.

It's a fugged-up planet.

The problem is not with the MSM, okay? The problem is with We The People. Global warming, peak oil, the subprime meltdown, the NO levees, the neocon cult - all had been well covered and reported by "alternative" info sources easily accessible by anyone who WANTS to be informed.

Key word: wants to. "We" do not want to know the truth. It's too scary, too ugly, too guilt-inducing. We've fallen, and we can't get up, and we refuse to admit we've fallen or that we can't get up. It's much easier to watch "news" that focuses on the irrelevant and fantastic, not the virtual destruction of our Constitution and Bill of Rights, or "our" murder of over a million innocent Iraqis, or the long-term financial struggle 90% of us will be enduring, or the "perfect storm" brewing in front of our faces - massive climate change, energy depletion, rising pollution, collapsing economies, overpopulation, superbug epidemics, crazed religious fanatics with their own private armies, the emptying of our Treasury for generations to come, untested genetically "modified" organisms bound to evolve in impossible to predict ways...

No way, man. Too much information. CNN said everything is mostly okay, so I'm going with that...

Mr. Schechter has nailed it. All of us at one
time or another can be so overwelmed with bull-
shit that we need to step back from seriousness
and move toward frivolity to keep our sanity.

But, the owners of this nation and the world will
not allow the people to disagree, demand or dissent
with the status quo or the state. These powerful mis-
creants main weapons are to marginalize, vilify or
destroy any who are vigorous in their legitimate crit-
icism of said BULLSHIT! from our political, economic,
and intellectual masters.

One doesn't have to know every single detail on every
issue that effects the people of this planet to know
that the powerful don't break down and tell the truth
when their murderous lies are exposed for all to see.

The lies have been exposed and honest people have to
to say enough. My solution is simple. When someone
states they don't care for you because they are in
some superior to you, you simply state that if they
are dying of thirst, they will be offered a glass of
dust if you are their only remedy.

All who support Nafta, Gatt, The WTO, The World Bank,
Free " Fuck the People " Trade, should get MSRA. All
who support the Iraq War, Katrina response and recov-
ery, our unfair crimminal justice system, I will urin-
ate on you if you are on fire. We do nothing to help
these inbredders thrive or survive. Inbreeding fucks
with your brains cells. How do you explain colin pow-
ell or george tenet going all with the carnage in Iraq?
Inbredding!

Since these people are so dangerous, don't get within
arm reach of them, physically, professionally, or phil-
osphically if you want to survive. But if you have no
alternative, then tell them you believe in full trans-
parentcy. If you are physically assaulted, just to win,
you have the right to kill. Anything goes because life
is not fair. Riiight? Touch die, don't touch live.
What a concept.

I am a baby boomer who has had it with the BULLSHIT!
The only way to shut me up is to kill. If you are cor-
rect with killing me because I am such an asshole,
Then let me suggest a new reality show. How about the
title " Live My Way or Die ". No one would be able to
complain because it is on television and we all know
Live television never lies

If anyone has a problem with my post, Talk to me. I
have no problem with that. Except for any kissass mo-
therfuckers who tell me as soon as one uses profanity,
the argument is null and void. Profanity is used when
evil fucks hide behind politness, decency and delicacy
want to bamboozle you.

First, MRSA is treatable. It responds to some antibiotics (varies among strains) which are expensive and have numerous side effects. Not the sort one wants to use unless one must.

If the author had done a simple Wikipedia search he would have known that.

Second, whatfools remark was in reference to Alexander Flemming the discoverer of penicillin. He went on vacation and left his lab sink full of petri dishes (glass at the time) full of bacterial cultures. When he returned he noticed that some mold had grown on one and had killed the bacteria around it. It was bread mold and after many years the chemical was isolated and called penicillin.

Third, bacteria phages are the viruses that whatfools is referring too. They are viruses that infect bacteria and are very species specific. The FDA approved a bacteria phage to spray on lunch meat to kill bacteria of the genus Listeria that cause food poisoning and can live at refrigeration temperatures.

Why do you all believe that the Democrats are going to come to the rescue? What have they done since taking over congress? Increased the minimum wage...which immediately lead to companies raising their prices (end result = 0)? They've continued to fund the war in Iraq even though they do not have to. They've voted to give Bush dictatorial power if and when he declares a national emergency. I don't believe that either party is going to represent the wishes of the majority of Americans as they are (the vast majority) members of the same club that they do represent (the wealthy). I'm not saying that all rich people are evil but right now the really evil, greedy one's are those that control the destiny of this nation and our destiny right now is despotism.

The problem is always 'us', in some way, but how do you expect 'us' to be well informed it the vast majority of all channels do not provide the information? Have you seen statistics on viewer choices lately? Or on the amount of time people spend at work or commuting? If the important stuff is systematically pushed out of the main stream sources it won't reach the masses. For comparison: most everybody from the peasant to the college professor in many middle eastern countries believes in the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" (at grotesque 19th cty forgery). It's constantly pushed in the state controlled media, to which there are few alternatives, and hence people swallow this crap. You might say: they should know better, they should find better sources. I say: good luck.
Thing is scale. Unless important news is conveyed at any scale and frequency it does not reach the bulk of the population. At least I know that Brad and Angelina are breaking up.

The earth is always in a delicate balance, and as Juliann said above "When the world is as grossly overpopulated as it is and has been for some time, 3 things will work to naturally control population: war, disease, and famine."

My friend developed MRSA, not sure how but he supposes it was from a piece of metal cutting him in a trailer. He developed a nasty knot on his leg and eventually got sick and had to go to the hospital. He was kept isolated and had to take extra precaution to be in a sterile area. He battled the infection for over a month and finally recovered. There aparently isn't a lot known about MRSA, but don't think you can just get it in a hospital. In my friend's case, the hospital is what helped him get through it. Although they have to be super careful not to let it spread there, it can be like a ticking timebomb.

But isn't everything these days?

there was a huge flap about using the floxin type complex antibiotics on cows and pigs in those massive farms- scientists were warning that it would worsen the resistance of antibiotics needed for humans- but BIG PHARMA and big farmers wanted to use the crap on animals so that we can drink the milk and eat the meat and get the runoff into the streams infested with their stupid antibiotic abuse. I am going to complain to my own right wing Congressman who is visiting our area next week- he is on the agriculutre committee in Congress.

When I first read this article, it left me feeling vaguely annoyed but not sure why. Now I've figured it out. It's not the content, it's the tone. The author continually seems to be asking "why weren't we informed", as if people are just passive vessels waiting to be filled with whatever knowledge comes dribbling though the pipe. But, the fact is that global warming was being discussed in the media throughout 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s. Potential dangers due to forest fires were on the radar in the 80s. Emergent diseases, incipient oil shortages, risky loans -- none of these things were really surprises, except to those who were not paying attention. All were being discussed openly, in public in the media for some years. Maybe the problem isn't the media? Maybe the problem isn't some sinister "them", out to give us the mushroom treatment? Maybe the problem is "us", for not paying attention? We like to think that we are victims of circumstance or treatment, but I think we also have some responsibility to be informed, even if gathering that information requires time and effort.

Greenerthanthou and Daniel D -- you are right on the money. These things that the author discusses are not boogeymen, they are problems that require solutions, not hand wringing.

good post greenerthanthou. Too many people and their domestic animals to pass on diseases in a monoculture where one bug can wipe out the lot. There is safety in biodiversity from bacteria to humans. In organic gardening we let friendly bugs control the bad ones instead of trying to wipe them all out with chemical poisons. This applies to the ecosystem in our own bodies.

We evolved with bacteria. We are covered and colonized with bacteria, and there is no way we could ever sterilize ourselves, or our environment.
This obsession with anitbacterial products is not only fruitless, it leads to the imbalance of bacteria in our environment. The weak bacteria is killed off, and the strong multiplies.
This, plus the overuse of antibiotics in people and animals, has led to the problem of MRSA and others.

And the dengue fever is attacking in Costa Rica. Climate change should provide a multitude of ills without cures in the next few years.

It's not nice to fool with Mother Nature.

methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA is the next possible pandemic. a woman in england went to a local hospital for a job interview. she contracted mrsa and is now dead. ("Bug hospital boss applied for job" BBC)

A start on a "remedy" is to not lump every kind of problem together and call them all "superbugs", as though we're a tad silly and stuck in a comic book.

MRSA is a physical infection best deterred by cleanliness. Consumer advocates shouldn't need to advise doctors with 10 years of formal education not to wear the same lab coat unwashed for two weeks, or advise hospital administrators that deliberate understaffing leads to employees not taking time to wash hands, equipment and patient environments.
The antidote here is unblinking disclosure to the public of which hospitals and which doctors are associated with cases of MRSA, exactly when and how many, reported forever.

"Waritis" is a political problem caused by 7 years of the wrong party entrusted with leadership. The societal effects of greed can also actually be mitigated (to a degree) with changes in income and capital gains tax policy, again done by a change in the political party controlling government. Even the "BS" problem in media and advertising can be addressed to an extent by regulatory policy and a change in "tone" emanating from The White House.

Climate change, fires, droughts, and peak oil are bigger problems probably best addressed by changes in American and world consumption habits, but they are surely not "superbugs".

When the world is as grossly overpopulated as it is and has been for some time, 3 things will work to naturally control population: war, disease, and famine. We are little more than petri dishes to bacteria and viruses, munching away, mutating, spreading the joy along the way. (Response to "whatfools" - who is Fleming? What "sloppy" discovery? What viruses? I hate sloppy postings.)

As for the 60 Minutes segment last Sunday - I read the transcript. I don't see how Schechter has applied the reference but nonetheless the information is fascinating: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/10/18/60minutes/main3380176.shtml

Before Fleming's sloppy discovery became popular the Red Army used a virus to control bacteria. Perhaps it's time to give the viruses another try.

great posts Jake and Norma.

Washing hands is the most important thing we can do to help prevent both bacterial and viral infections.

Household stuff with anti-bacterial agents is stupid. We live with bacteria and bacteria live in us. There are more bacterial cells in our body by a significant amount then our own cells and we could not live without them.