Even Last-Resort Antibiotics Are Losing Effectiveness

 

Even our last-resort antibiotics are now in jeopardy of losing effectiveness. "The total doses of antibiotics sold in clinics and pharmacies around the world rose 36 percent from 2000 to 2010, scientists reported Wednesday. The finding, published in The Lancet Infectious Disease, comes from the first study to look at global antibiotic consumption in the 21st century. And it seems like good news, right?...But the world's insatiable need for penicillin and Cipro also has a dark side: the rise in drug-resistant bacteria. Now, even the last-resort antibiotics — the ones that are used after all others fail — are in jeopardy of losing their effectiveness." Michaeleen Doucleff in NPR.

The government's infectious-disease scare problem is getting contagious. "Congressional Republicans asked the Obama administration on Wednesday to provide documents related to last month's anthrax scare at a U.S. lab....CDC officials say live anthrax may have been transferred from the Atlanta facility to employees in a lower-security lab who were not wearing proper protective gear, raising concerns that they may have been exposed to the deadly pathogen. No one has shown symptoms. Officials initially believed as many as 84 people could have been exposed and scores have taken antibiotics to ward off infection." Reuters.