While I was out of the office last week, Maryn McKenna wrote up a few informative blog posts about the CDC’s threat report.
The first summarizes the lengthy report (114 pages) by highlighting the top three “urgent” threats–CRE, N. gonorrhoeae, and C. difficle. She also mentions that CDC’s director Dr. Tom Frieden states “If we are not careful, we will soon be in a post-antibiotic era. And for some patients and for some microbes, we are already there.”
Another post discusses the connection between agricultural antibiotic use and bacterial resistance in humans.
As an aside, if you’re as much of an emerging disease junkie as I am, check out McKenna’s blog on a regular basis. She’s also written a book on MRSA that should be required reading for all clinical microbiologists. It’s one part history, one part science lesson, and one part cautionary tale about this bacterium.
-Kelly Swails
