Antimicrobial Resistance

Adding more urgency to the need to develop alternate drugs, a highly resistant superbug previously unseen in the U.S. has reached the country.

GENEVA – With forecasts of 10 million deaths per year—more than current annual cancer deaths—and $1 trillion in lost economic output from antimicrobial resistance by 2050, AMR surged to the top rank of health concerns at this week’s World Health Assembly.

With 700,000 people dying annually from antibiotic-resistant diseases, and dire predictions of up to 10 million dying per year by 2050, the situation is described as a “crisis” and “apocalypse” even by the venerable and staid Smithsonian. Still, there’s still hope to turn…

The future is dark, at least when it comes to the rise of drug-resistant superbugs, according to next week’s cover story in The Economist. This week, a UK study estimated that 700,000 people die annually from infections by drug-resistant pathogens and parasites. By 2050,…

Perdue, the 4th largest poultry producer in the US, 2 years ago stopped feeding chicks the antibiotic gentamicin. Antibiotics in animal feed, used to stimulate growth and ward off illness, contribute to antibiotic resistance in humans, making so-called superbugs more…

Almost 1/3 of all prescriptions doled out each year in the US—about 47 million—are unnecessary, according to a major study in JAMA. The research from the CDC and the Pew Charitable Trust provides numbers, said David Hyun, a senior officer with Pew's antibiotic resistance…

Read the full report: TACKLING DRUG-RESISTANT INFECTIONS GLOBALLY: FINAL REPORT AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Canada’s caves and sewage lagoons are fuelling Naowarat Cheeptham’s search for treatments to kill superbugs. "We find microbes in that (subterranean) soil," says the Kamloops' Thomson Rivers University microbiologist. "Pristine organisms that haven't contacted surface life…

Turning to the Internet to treat sexually transmitted infections may spare embarrassment, but online treatments are often sub-optimal or incorrect and contribute to antibiotic resistance. For example, effective treatment for gonorrhea—which affects 30,000 people in the UK—…

While pets often suffer blame for spreading germs to humans, keeping furry friends around could actually boost the human immune system against threats like methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). “While pets can be MRSA vectors, they often get it from people…