Science Cafe: The Rise of the Superbug

Posted Monday, April 13, 2009

Embed Audio

Download MP3

Every year, nearly 100,000 people die from infections they pick up in a place that's supposed to make them healthy: their hospital. Our health care facilities have become breeding grounds for drug resistant bacteria--and those super bugs are making their way into the community. On the Sound of Ideas®, the science of identifying and combating the public health threat that lives on your doctor's stethoscope. Monday morning at 9.

Guests

Dr. Robert Bonomo, Associate Professor of Medicine and Pharmacology, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine
Dr. Louis B. Rice, Chief, Medical Service Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center

Additional Information

Science Cafe: Can we ESKAPE antibiotic resistance?
The New Yorker: Superbugs, The new generation of resistant infections is almost impossible to treat

Please follow our community discussion rules when composing your comments.

Ellen Mee 10:16 AM 4/13/09

Thanks to guests for their expertise on this important topic. But, the overuse of important human antibiotics in livestock and poultry production may be a larger problem than they realize. An estimated 50-70% of all antibiotics used in the U.S. are used subtherapeutically in animal agriculture—not to treat disease but to promote growth or feed efficiency or prevent disease from the overcrowed conditions in which livestock are raised today. The recent study in Midwest by Tara Smith and colleagues found MRSA in 49% of swine and 45% of swine workers in one large swine feeding operation. Clearly we can no longer tolerate this gross misuse of these important community resources. Representatives Dennis Kucinich and Mary Jo Kilroy are cosponsoring a bill (endorsed by the AMA and IDSA) to phase out the use of critical human antibiotics in livestock production. Ask your representatives to join them in supporting the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act.