antibiotic resistance

Forget swine flu. It’s trivial at the side of resistant bacteria deaths. As of Nov 6th the total still hasn’t reached 1,000 in the US, despite the continuing media hysteria [http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/updates/us/]. Deaths from resistant bacteria run in the 10,000s. MRSA alone killed 19,000 in 2005, the latest year for which I can find official US figures (it is now much higher, of course). Now Clostridium difficile has joined the fray. It’s name says it all. It’s difficult to control and it’s antibiotic-resistant form is now killing 5,000 people a year in the USA alone. According to a report (November 1st 2009) one strain of MRSA is five times more lethal than what has gone before. The mortality is 50%, compared to 11% for the “normal” MRSA. Why aren’t the newspapers and TV programs screaming about this? This is NOW! 50/50 is horrendous odds. Like Russian roulette with 3 bullets in the gun.

Forget swine flu. It’s trivial at the side of resistant bacteria deaths. As of Nov 6th the total still hasn’t reached 1,000 in the US, despite the continuing media hysteria [http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/updates/us/]. Deaths from resistant bacteria run in the 10,000s. MRSA alone killed 19,000 in 2005, the latest year for which I can find official US figures (it is now much higher, of course). Now Clostridium difficile has joined the fray. It’s name says it all. It’s difficult to control and it’s antibiotic-resistant form is now killing 5,000 people a year in the USA alone. According to a report (November 1st 2009) one strain of MRSA is five times more lethal than what has gone before. The mortality is 50%, compared to 11% for the “normal” MRSA. Why aren’t the newspapers and TV programs screaming about this? This is NOW! 50/50 is horrendous odds. Like Russian roulette with 3 bullets in the gun.