rot wrote:..
You know, if I wanted to grow a super bug of some sort, I would try to get something to survive our antibiotics and cleaners and industrial toxins that you might find in a sewer. Anything that can grow in that has got to be dangerous.
to sense
..
I think several "super bugs" are already here: Methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (
MRSA) and a virulent form of
tuberculosis, nearly resistant to everything that's been tried against it. Malaria, which
had been very responsive to the artemisinin pharmaceuticals maybe 12 or so years ago, now scoffs at them because it has developed
resistance to them so quickly.
A large % of antibiotics in the U.S. is used in CAFOs (concentrated animal-feeding operations, commonly called feedlots), where cattle or swine are "finished" for market. They're packed in so tightly that disease will run rampant without the drugs.
This article details the connection between MRSA and feedlot antibiotic use.
A lovely article on the connection btw antibiotic-resistant UTIs and poultry raised on "prophylactic" (preventive) doses of antibiotics, discovered only this year by researchers in several countries around the world.
Here's a scientific study from the CDC on the rise of antibiotic-resistant strains of E. coli cases in the past two decades or so.
Antibiotic-resistant bugs are winning; people--and animals--are losing. The more we use antibiotics indiscriminately, the fewer weapons we will have left when we *really need help.*
This is already showing up in veterinary medicine, as well as in the human diseases I've listed above.
My new rescue dog leaked blood from his...urethra...almost three weeks ago, Monday, December 3. Took him to the vet as soon as I possibly could! The med prescribed, Clavamox, is 1) very expensive and 2) usually a 10-day course. Not this time.
This time, we had to administer it to this unwilling 100-pound doggie
for fourteen (yes, 14) days to make sure the infectious agent was good and killed.
I got some intense upper-body resistance exercise and some colorful bruises from his teeth and the backlash of his head onto my forearms. When a
Bernese Mtn. Dog decides
NO, that's a real
NO, and it takes sheer strength, both of mind and body, to get the meds into the dog--yes, even when the meds are coated in cream cheese. The first photo in the linked article is of an adult male. Now imagine him with his very large paws planted on the floor in reverse gear, teeth clenched shut, snapping his head back and forth...yep. That was us for two whole weeks, twice a day. But the bugs seem to be gone.
This time....
With all of this depressing news, how can an individual help?
Use regular soaps and cleaners, not "anti-bacterial" soaps and cleaners (you may need to make your own cleaners). The function of soap is to get the germs on your skin to slide off your skin and down the drain, where the local waste-treatment plant can kill them. Use warm to hot water, depending on what you personally can tolerate, to build up the lather and then send it *and the germs* down the drain.

Be thankful that you have access to clean water; many in our world do not. But regular old soap, detergent, bleach in the laundry, etc., do a fine job.
Hospitals in the 1930s had a very low rate of infection because they were absolutely scrupulous about infection control: hand-washing, bleach, hot water, etc. Antibiotics hadn't been discovered yet. Yes, folks: we've run through these miracle drugs in 60 to 70 years.
Back to the '30s....
Cynthia H.
Sunset Zone 17, USDA Zone 9