“Norwegian doctors prescribe fewer antibiotics than any other country, so [bacteria carried by] people do not have a chance to develop resistance to them.

…

Norwegians are sanguine about their coughs and colds, toughing it out through low-grade infections.”

The solution is simple: don’t use antibiotics for infections that do not require them.

They swabbed my nose to see what it was, and the cultures came back negative (antibiotics knocked it down?). I have eczema, meaning i don’t make an antimicrobial peptide that is normally secreted on the skin, so I am more likely to get skin infections (same reason I can’t have the smallpox vaccine).

I think i am pretty lucky that the antibiotics worked. I am allergic to penicillin, so my choices are limited. The moral of the story? DON’T PLAY WITH YOUR TOES and CLEAN YOUR WOUNDS!!!

http://jmm.sgmjournals.org/cgi/content/full/56/12/1595

The problem originated in US Field Hospitals in Iraq: the idea was (and still is) to keep keep the place clean without constant cleaning and clean-after-contact protocols for patient care.

This brilliant idea relies on the pervasive use of antibiotics and antimicrobial agents. They’re still doing it. And the result is a network of hospitals that turned into a playground for a bug that you can cultivate in a bucket of disinfectant.

That last statement is not an exaggeration. A. Baumannii can be cultured from a swab left overnight in a bucket of Lysol. It can be *cultured* in a bucket of Lysol, and every other disinfectant you can use in a space where humans coexist with the cleaning operation.

So what did we get next? Baumannii infections came home with wounded soldiers, and military hospitals in the USA (and Europe!) started reporting cases, which have now spread out into the civilian hosptal system.

In my darker moments, I wonder whether someone in the command chain is an evolution denier. In a more generous mood, I recall that it’s labour-intensive (read: expensive) to maintain hospital-standard hygeine, even in a purpose-built hospital; and very difficult indeed in a field station that might be nothing more than a tent city, with a fine dust of dried camel-dung blowing in on the wind.

Whether I’m in a generous mood or not, the result is inescapable: the overuse of antibiotics in field hospitals gave an illusion of safety that now kills more soldiers than the post-trauma infections that the Army thought they were preventing.

And now the Iraq war has delivered a killer bioweapon into every city on the USA: just as well it only infects the wounded. And the bug doesn’t actually grow at all well in places where it’s out-competed by a healthy bacterial flora. I’d call it Saddam’s revenge, but we did it to ourselves.

And most importantly, never take advice on health matters from doctors or random pseudonymous people on the Internet.

Example: I have lost track of the number of guys I see leave the Men’s room without washing their hands or flushing the urinal. Responses when asked why they did not do these simple acts of hygiene range from baffled stares to nervous laughter to incredulous statements about “saving water” and “being green”. But most will continue such habits, despite education, requests, rules or shame.

Worst of all, many make a bee-line for the kitchen immediately after, using the communal coffee maker and other appliances. So much for disease control.

These are your doctors of tomorrow. Be afraid.

But no, antibiotic resistance that is being referred to here is due to the overuse and improper use of antibiotics.

I must agree with MichaelRN though, that Acinetobacter baumannii scares me more than all of the above. It is an emerging nosocomial infection.

edselpdx(RN)

Funny how hand sanitizer dispensers are appearing everywhere now, and just yesterday I walked past a mattress shop with two prominent window displays for their bedbug-proof mattress covers, so I guess people are finding out the hard way, but still reluctant to talk about such creepy things.

It is Lamarckian. It is the inheritance of acquired traits. But it’s worth noting that bacteria have to be very, very economical with how much DNA they store. If antibiotic resistance isn’t advantageous to them, they will not be able to afford the cost of maintaining it, and they will drop it.

Civilization has an antibiotic arsenal that at this point is huge. If we do the sensible thing and strictly regulate the use of antibiotics, including a ban on non-medical use in animals (and frankly, I’d favor banning medical use in animals too. It’s horrible, but homo sapiens should come first.), and strict monitoring of patients who receive antibiotics, we will be in a situation where there will always be long-forgotten antibiotics ready to return into rotation. And bacteria forget as quickly as they learn. Won’t take long.

You can’t have it both ways: you either accept a certain amount of dirtiness, or you wage an arms race with evolution.

o rly?”

That theory’s not new. Some doctors believe the incidences now are a result of us weakening our immune systems in modern life with things like antibiotics. I believe it could be a combination of this and mutated bugs.

It’s even been suggested that the increase in arthritis cases is tied to our use of antibiotics over the last century. The body’s flora become unbalanced, and the immune system begins to gradually wear down certain tissues within the body.

Compare these with the comment above about C-DIFF being a natural part of one’s system, but after other bacteria that would keep it in check are damaged, C-DIFF makes things ugly.