TB Story
by ilene - December 28th, 2009 1:37 pm
This is a reminder that pathogenic microorganisms evolve faster than we can create or discover cures. As for investment ideas--face masks, hand sanitizers, immune-boosting supplements--any other suggestions? - Ilene
Comment by Terry Doherty:
Drug resistant TB IS already here, and has been here for a long time.
This is a very new strain, and it is a kind of super-resistant strain. You can’t even THINK about trying to kill it. And yes, pathogens evolve MUCH faster than we can develop new antibiotic drugs. Typically, when antibiotics are in clinical trials, before they even make it onto the market, resistant strains have already developed. This is a no-win situation. We can’t control bacteria by devising more powerful antibiotics. If anything, it makes the problem worse, not better, and anyhow there is no way to win that war. Bacteria have already overwhelmed us and unquestionably won that war. We just don’t quite realize it yet.
Terry Doherty is the Research Program Coordinator in the Depts of Biomedical Sciences and Academic Affairs at Cedar Sinai in Los Angeles, California.
First Case of Drug-Resistant TB Found in U.S.
By AP / MARGIE MASON AND MARTHA MENDOZA, courtesy of TIMEExcerpts: It started with a cough, an autumn hack that refused to go away.
Then came the fevers….
Doctors say Juarez’s incessant hack was a sign of what they have both dreaded and expected for years — this country’s first case of a contagious, aggressive, especially drug-resistant form of tuberculosis. The Associated Press learned of his case, which until now has not been made public, as part of a six-month look at the soaring global challenge of drug resistance.
Juarez’s strain — so-called extremely drug-resistant (XXDR) TB — has never before been seen in the U.S., according to Dr. David Ashkin, one of the nation’s leading experts on tuberculosis. XXDR tuberculosis is so rare that only a handful of other people in the world are thought to have had it.
"He is really the future," Ashkin said. "This is the new class that people are not really talking too much about. These are the ones we really fear because I’m not sure how we treat them."
Forty years ago, the world thought it had conquered TB and any number of other diseases through the new wonder drugs: Antibiotics. U.S. Surgeon General William H. Stewart announced it was "time to
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
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