Outbreaks of antibiotic resistant pathogens like Salmonella, E. coli and Listeria.
The FDA is heralding a drop in antibiotic use in farm animals from 2016 to 2017. This issue is critical to human health, since antibiotic-resistant bacteria are being identified in more and more human food poisoning outbreaks. The World Health Organization warned the medical community about this problem in 2012. At that time, Dr. Margaret Chan … Read more
Columbus State University Biology Majors have published a paper about their research on treating antibiotic resistant bacteria. The students were focusing on alternative therapies to treat Acinetobacter haumannii, which causes urinary tract infections, pneumonia, burns and wound infections, and septicemia. The World Health Organization has said that antibiotic resistant bacteria is a major public health … Read more
According to U.S. PIRG, for the first time, antibiotic sales for livestock declined for the first time in 2016. This is something many advocates have been working on for decades, since misuse of antibiotics can and has created antibiotic resistant bacteria. WHO sounded the alarm over this issue in 2014, stating that unless something was … Read more
The World Health Organization issued a news release on November 7, 2017, recommending that farmers and the food industry stop using antibiotics routinely to promote growth and prevent disease in healthy animals to help control the development of antibiotic resistance. Antibiotics that are important for human medicine are used in food animals. The effectiveness of … Read more
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is investing $77 million in efforts to track and fight antibiotic resistance. The money is going to public health departments in all 50 states and Puerto Rico. The hope is that officials will develop new ways to combat antibiotic resistant bacteria in food, healthcare facilities, and communities. … Read more
A study conducted at Harvard and MIT and published in the journal eLife has discovered one way that bacteria become resistant to drugs. Individual mutations that increase pathogenic bacteria’s resistance to multiple antibiotics has not been fully explored. About 23,000 Americans die every year from bacterial and fungal infections that are resistant to antibiotics. That … Read more
The World Health Organization (WHO) has published its first ever list of antibiotic-resistant bacteria that pose the greatest threat to human health and which urgently need new types of antibiotics. These bacteria are resistant to some last-resort antibiotics. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), antibiotic-resistant bacteria kill 23,000 Americans every year. … Read more
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is tracking the mcr-1 gene in bacteria. This gene can make bacteria resistant to colistin, an antibiotic that is the “last resort” drug for some multidrug-resistant pathogens. Colistin is considered an old drug and is rarely used because it can damage the kidneys. The gene was found in … Read more
New research at University College London (UCL) has found that antibiotics can kill antibiotic-resistant bacteria with brute force. The study was published in Nature Scientific Reports. In order to kill bacteria, antibiotics have to bind to the cells in the pathogens. Bacterial resistance can be caused by molecular changes to the surface of the bacteria. … Read more
Scientists at Oregon State University have made progress in the war against antibiotic resistant bacteria. More and more pathogenic bacteria are developing resistance against antibiotics, even our last-ditch drugs. Researchers have found that a molecule can neutralize bacteria’s ability to become resistant to antibiotics. The study was published in the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy. This … Read more