{"id":6712,"date":"2013-10-24T21:18:15","date_gmt":"2013-10-25T02:18:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/?p=6712"},"modified":"2013-10-24T21:18:15","modified_gmt":"2013-10-25T02:18:15","slug":"incurable-infections-nightmare-bacteria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/2013\/10\/24\/incurable-infections-nightmare-bacteria\/","title":{"rendered":"Incurable Infections \u2013 \u201cNightmare Bacteria\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the new PBS Frontline documentary Hunting the Nightmare Bacteria<\/i><\/a> premiering this week, I hope that the American public is finally becoming aware of what many in the U.S. and around the world have seen coming for years. \u00a0I encourage readers to check out the film and the links available online through PBS. However, I feel ethically bound to issue a \u2018trigger warning\u2019 for those who do not want to view a child and young adult being ravaged by diabolical infections.<\/p>\n

\"File:E.-coli-growth.gif\"<\/a>
Growth of E-coli<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Are we ready for the post-antibiotic era<\/b>? \u00a0Supposedly, we were all alerted last March when the CDC sounded an alarm \u2013 \u201cAction needed now to halt spread of deadly bacteria<\/a>\u201d \u2013 but how many of us heard it?<\/p>\n

We\u2019re still in the dark when it comes to nightmare bacteria.\u00a0 At this point, I\u2019m less convinced that anyone is \u201chunting\u201d these antibiotic-resistant bacteria and more convinced that these microorganisms are hunting us<\/span>.\u00a0 We need to be on the defensive, taking steps to protect ourselves, our loved ones, and our society.<\/p>\n

Reading the PBS documentary\u2019s link to \u201cEight Ways to Protect Yourself from Superbugs<\/a>,\u201d I found tips that are not new but are important reminders for public health. \u00a0I\u2019m a big believer in their recommendation to question the necessity and effectiveness of all prescriptions of antibiotics (e.g., that they cannot cure viral illnesses).\u00a0 That said, \u00a0I\u2019m sad that we still need to teach people how to properly wash their hands, and I\u2019m even more dismayed that we have to recommend that everyone asks their medical providers to wash their hands. \u00a0Unfortunately, promoting hand-washing is only a small improvement when proper drying methods are unavailable: studies<\/a> continue to show that air hand dryers add more bacteria to clean hands<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the documentary, Arjun Srinivasan, M.D., Associate Director of CDC, warns, \u201c\u2026the more antibiotics we put into people, we put into the environment, the more opportunities we create for these bacteria to become resistant\u2026.\u201d\u00a0 However, the environmental components \u2013 government funding for research and surveillance, public health policies, and medical norms \u2013 are not fully addressed by this film.\u00a0 In addition, the causal link to meat and poultry policies\/practices<\/a> is completely absent. \u00a0As a medical sociologist, my critique of this documentary is that it spends a lot of time on horrific case studies and too little time on the structural and social causes, consequences, and solutions to this crisis.<\/p>\n

For a more complete picture, see the CDC\u2019s report <\/a>with graphics that illustrate the dynamics of drug resistance.\u00a0 I was stunned by chilling estimates: annually, antibiotic resistance will cause over 2 million Americans to become ill and will result in at least 23,000 deaths. <\/b>\u00a0In the early years of the HIV\/AIDS epidemic, activists rallied public support and political action with the message that \u201cSilence Equals Death\u201d \u2013 what message will wake up Americans to the realities of our new nightmare?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With the new PBS Frontline documentary Hunting the Nightmare Bacteria premiering this week, I hope that the American public is finally becoming aware of what many in the U.S. and around the world have seen coming for years. \u00a0I encourage readers to check out the film and the links available online through PBS. However, I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1918,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21094],"tags":[25790,25791,25792,1934,25795,33,25793,25796,4150,25797,4071],"class_list":["post-6712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bedside-manners","tag-antibiotic","tag-antibiotic-resistance","tag-bacteria","tag-cdc","tag-community-health","tag-health","tag-infection","tag-meat","tag-pbs","tag-poultry","tag-public-health"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1918"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6712"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6712\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6715,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6712\/revisions\/6715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}