A team of scientists at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and Army Institute of Research in Washington, DC has found the first instance of a person living in the U.S. infected with an antibiotic-resistant microbe.
An E. coli bacterium taken from a Pennsylvania woman, diagnosed with a urinary tract infection, contained the mcr-1 gene that has resistance to colistin, which is the antibiotic of last resort.
According to Thomas Frieden, director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), " We risk living in a post-antibiotic world."
It appears the over-use of antibiotics may lead to infections that no drugs can cure. according to the CDC, each year 23,000 Americans die from infections of antibiotic resistant bacteria.
So far the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has taken a strictly voluntary approach to reducing overuse of antibiotics.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) has introduced a bill that would restrict the use of medically important antibiotics in livestock.
The truth is that unless we take important measures now to change animal agriculture, we are are all at risk.
We could be living in a world where antibiotics don't work, the are more incurable bacterial infections in people and a rising death toll.
As a consumer, you can look for organic meat and poultry that are raised without antibiotics.
-Thom
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