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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 09/07/2010 : 07:13:35
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Captain Tripps? 
Japan confirms its first case of new superbug gene in man returning from India
Japan has confirmed the nation's first case of a new gene in bacteria that allows the microorganisms to become drug-resistant superbugs, detected in a man who had medical treatment in India, a Health Ministry official said Tuesday.
The gene, known as NDM-1, was found in a Japanese man in his 50s, Kensuke Nakajima said.
Researchers say the gene — which appears to be circulating widely in India — alters bacteria, making them resistant to nearly all known antibiotics. |
This is ugly, but not entirely unexpected. We've been breeding, accidently and on purpose, stronger and stronger microorganisms for a quite a while. The only mystery is why this one hasn't turned up sooner. And how many more are out there?
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 09/07/2010 : 08:01:07 [Permalink]
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| I've been saying it for years, modern medicine will kill us all! |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 09/07/2010 : 13:45:26 [Permalink]
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| alters bacteria, making them resistant to nearly all known antibiotics. |
I hate the media. Seriously.
Treatment presents major challenges. Most isolates with NDM-1 enzyme are resistant to all standard intravenous antibiotics for treatment of severe infections.
Those two statements are not equivalent.
Extended spectrum beta-lactamase producing bacteria have been around for a while, and while the situation with them is certainly serious, it's hardly the "ohh noes, ruuuuun!" thing described by RAWStory.
Often these very resistant organism are only minimally virulent, causing mostly opportunistic infection. There are also still some antibiotics available to treat them.
The only take away from this "story" is that you shouldn't no to India or Pakistan for cheap surgery.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Evolution in action!
