Antibiotic Resistant Superbugs Set To Wreak Havoc Under Trumpies

Superbugs exposed by special stain..

Imagine the U.S. in the throes of a massive superbug epidemic, perhaps MRSA or C. Diff. sometime in the next four years. It is possible, even probable, as Trump and his hired henchmen go about disbanding the Affordable Care Act, a point made clear by his appointment of Tom Price (R, GA) to the Dept. of Health and Human Services. This degenerate, Price, wants to not only abolish the Medicaid coverage for over 14 million but also remove the pre-existing conditions provision (i.e. that enables those with pre-existing conditions to get insurance under the ACA or "Obamacare"). In addition,  he along with Paul Ryan wants to replace Medicare with a "voucher" system where each person gets a small amount per year ($10k is often cited) to buy whatever insurance possible - and to cover all medical incidents, emergencies. If I'd been reduced to such a yearly voucher I'd have had to file for bankruptcy since getting cancer treatment 4 years ago and having gall bladder surgery (which came to $28,000 ) this year.

These dastardly moves would be bad in a normal environment but that's not the one we're approaching.  Nightmare superbugs, including c. diff.(which I'd written about before - that knocked Janice down in 2006-07 and hospitalized her twice) are on the rise and getting worse.  This is as antibiotic resistance rises, predicted to fell more than 2 million Americans this year, with 23,000 killed.

In Janice's case, by her second hospitalization in January, 2007, it was clear that the usual antibiotics were not stopping her c.diff - a severe bowel infection caused by the gram negative bacterium, clostridium difficile. By the time of the 2nd emergency room visit she'd lost over twenty pounds and one ER physician compared her condition to cholera. He shook his head and said in wonder: "It is a good thing she has Medicare and a good supplemental insurance. Without it, she'd have either had to fend for herself or be charged a lot of money for the ER visit."  The only antibiotic that finally rid Janice of her c.diff. superbug was the strongest then available, vancomycin.

We couldn't help but think at the time of others who might demur going to the ER, and thence spread the infection to dozens of people outside any controlled environment.  (In Janice's case, this second time around she had to be housed in a special separate, isolated room and those coming to treat her had to be specially outfitted.)

As I'd written about in a number of posts on mutation and evolution in 2010-11, bacteria like all living things evolve and adapt to survive.  Some develop cell walls that actually keep antibiotics out, while others pump antibiotics out when they get in. In other words, bacteria like c. diff. have developed many ways to deactivate or neutralize the action of these drugs.  As this resistance becomes ever more successful and adaptive, the superbugs get more virulent.

How serous is it? By mid-2015 the most powerful antibiotic used at that point was colistin. But in November of that year, specialists isolated bacteria that carried a single gene that made them resistant to colistin. In April of this year, the same gene showed up in bacteria in the U.S. According to Jean Patel based at the CDC and quoted in the recent AARP Bulletin (November, p. 31):

"And now we're beginning to get reports of bacteria that are resistant to virtually every antibiotic we have."

What are the political and health implications of these developments in the context of a Trump presidency? First, his anti-regulatory stance and advocated policies mean little or nothing will be done to staunch the widespread use of antibiotics, say in agriculture. This means that antibiotic resistance will continue to grow with each passing month.   This is especially worrying given that "approximately 80 percent of antibiotics sold in the U.S. are used in animals raised for food." (Ibid.)

Second, health care cuts, especially to Obamacare, will put millions of our fellow citizens at risk of infection - and infecting others. If their ACA insurance coverage or Medicaid is taken away, and they deem it too costly to seek care outside it  - they may well just try to sit out a bout of c.diff. diarrhea (going up to 20x a day) or a MRSA skin infection. The results could be catastrophic. As opposed to 23,000 dying in a year, 2 million infected, we could well see 200,000 dying each year and 20 million infected.  On the positive side, a recent survey conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation showed that only 1 in 4 Americans favor repeal of the ACA. One hopes that these are mostly anti-government Trumpeters.

Third, Trump Co. may well gut or repeal Obama's $1.1 billion, earmarked earlier this year to fight resistant bacteria. This was a definite acknowledgement of just how serious the situation has become but its continuation is contingent on the generosity of the Trump administration. If they cut it completely, citing the need for more tax cuts for corporations and plutocrats, the antibiotic resistant battle may well be over.

One of the scientists quoted in the AARP piece, says at the end:

"I think everyone is finally beginning to recognize the deadly seriousness of the threat posed by antibiotic resistant bacteria."

Maybe, most of us do  - those who respect scientific facts and research. But those who invent facts on their own, like Trump and company, may not. In that case we are all likely for the high jump.


See also:

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/richard-eskow/70092/warning-this-trump-hire-is-hazardous-to-your-health-and-not-just-your-medicare

Mail Brane Blog: Readers Seeking Answers to Questions

Q.  Ok, I'm curious. In your Sept. 28 Mail Brane Blog the second questioner('Davante')  asked if he could go to FLA and "teach your cracker brother some manners". There's a link to his racist blog in your response but when I click on the link I get a message:

"Sorry, the blog at mytalkandthoughts.blogspot.com has been removed.  This address is not available for new blogs."

So what happened to it? - Julie, Ann Arbor, MI

A. I have been informed by a reliable source that Mike voluntarily removed it as he was "appalled" at the hate he'd spewed out again.  Of course, he's done this on at least two occasions earlier before changing his mind and resurrecting it again. So, who can say what the real reason is? My theory is - if he did take it down on his own - it was more likely a result of being blistered with comments, emails complaining about the content. He simply got tired dealing with all the flack so simply pulled the whole blog.

Q. Reading your assorted posts on the framing of Oswald by the CIA, the Oswald doppelgangers and so on, has my head spinning. Can a conspiracy really be this complicated? - Oscar W., London, Ontario

A. Of course! The mistake too many make is assuming simplicity along the same theoretic lines as for physical theories. Obviously, we opt to have physical theories,( i.e. quantum theory, Newtonian gravitation etc.) that are simple and elegant, minimal hypotheses and no loose strings, because these are also more amenable to mathematical formalism. Thus, the widespread presumption that any viable physical theory needs to be a hallmark of simplicity - not complication.

But let's be realistic here: human beings are not inanimate, unconscious objects like planets and moons in defined orbits,  or billiard balls - say that collide according to Newton's 2nd and 3rd laws of motion- making their future paths predictable. Humans by their nature possess the capacity for duplicity, formulation of self-determined agendas and concealed motives as well as the ability to misdirect others toward their (hidden) agendas. In any conspiracy of any magnitude (say like assassinating a President), therefore, one fully expects such devious capacities to overwhelm straight line logic - given the conspirators already know any would-be investigators would start off with that form of approach.

Hence, for the conspiracy to be ultimately successful, it would have to cover all the (ex post facto presumed linear logic) bases in advance, and build in misdirection at multiple junctures. The use of Oswald "doppelgangers" (actually impostors, and at least one physical double - deployed in Big D itself) accomplishes this. Yes, it is liable to make certain heads "burst"  and others spin- but then those heads, brains are too wedded to pedestrian and prosaic (what I call linear) logic anyway. They will always be the first to throw their hands in the air, and say 'I give up - this is too complicated' and opt to chose the simplest alternative, albeit totally wrong - which is the lone assassin bollocks.

This is why seriously pursuing something like the JFK assassination is not for everyone. The false leads, framing complexities, arcane CIA mischief -  false names, cut outs, constellation of differing files-documents as well as covert operations, narratives are usually too much except for deep politics mavens. Most Americans, sadly, can barely keep pace with our standard politics, far less deep politics. But those of us who want to get to the bottom of this dastardly crime of the century aren't easily dissuaded, nor are we easily distracted by lone assassin bunkum, tales or fake  "revelations" (which supposedly REELZ-TV plans to put on tonight). We know better, through long years of experience and having been already led down many dead ends and into false leads.

Basically then, there are few options for anyone really interested in the case:

1) You can hurl yourself into it and dig up thousands of files, documents and pore through them like the rest of us (researchers) have.

2) You can take the easy path, and just accept the simple (but wrong) lone assassin narrative - sticking with the likes of Gerald Posner, Vince Bugliosi, Philip Shenon etc.

3) You can adopt an "agnostic" approach and just say the case is too difficult to find any reasonable resolution, but knowing in the back of your mind, many of us already have (to within perhaps 95% probability).

Q.  I was shocked to read in your Sept. 25 blog of the persistent after effects from the radiation treatment for your prostate cancer. I would have thought given such significant effects the psa would surely have dived but in your blog post of Nov. 2 you say it's gone up.  How is this possible?- Anne, Dublin, Ireland

A. Sadly, Anne, no one knows the answer. All anyone can do is guess. Who knows why some 10 percent or so of patients hit the psa nadir within months of treatment, and it never goes back up? And why others (like me) experience a "PSA bounce" and then have to closely monitor the PSA over time for signs of "treatment failure". No one really knows and this is why more longitudinal studies over time for the different treatment modalities are badly needed.

One more interesting aside: When I had the PSA test done at LabCorp, I had to sign a form agreeing to pay for the test ($127) if Medicare didn't, given Medicare regards those in my "condition" as no longer needing it!  Now, this is strange, but maybe not. It suggests that Medicare regards the fact that once you've had treatment as ending the matter. Hence, a series of PSA tests - with rising numbers - led you to get treatment, but now that you've had treatment you need no further tests. Of course, this takes no account at all of the possibility of treatment failure or that the numbers can go back up. But given Medicare's solvency problems I guess it's understandable, so I expect to probably have to pay!


Q. In your Oct. 30 post ('Pills Made from Poop') you wrote that your wife got c. diff. after taking amoxicillin, but then to relieve it she was put on another antibiotic called flagyl- which didn't work- so then she was put on vancomycin. What I don't get is how an antibiotic can cause c. diff. but then it takes an even stronger antibiotic to snuff it out. How can that be? Shouldn't the strongest antibiotic make the symptoms worse if a lesser one starts them off? - Andre, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

A. Sorry, antibiotics don't work in that particular way. First, there appears to be a category of antibiotics which predisposes one to c. diff. Amoxicillin is one of these, and there are others which you can learn about by googling: "antibiotics predisposing to c. diff".  Let's also grasp that the initial introduction of amoxicillin essentially killed off nearly all the good bacteria which allowed the bad bacteria, the c. diff. to spread. By this stage, then, with the harmful bacteria spreading, an antibiotic powerful enough to kill them is what's needed. These are flagyl and vancomycin. The only possible effect these could have is: no effect (i.e. on antibiotic resistant bacteria) or eliminating the bad bacteria enough to allow the good guys to proliferate again.


Q. Reading your post 'The United States Of Tex-Ass' on Oct. 26 was a wake up call since I now live in Dallas. I never realized what a hotbed of hate the city was back in 1963, and to me it might explain for why Kennedy was killed there. Are they any other sources about the city back then, say from online sites, that I can read about it? I plan to get 'Dallas 1963' but in the meantime would like to see some other stuff. - Jared, Dallas, TX

A. A recent set of articles - blog posts has been appearing by Russ Baker on www.smirkingchimp.com based on his bestseller, Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, America’s Invisible Government and the Hidden History of the Last Fifty Years. 

These appeared in seven installments on smirkingchimp.com with full article accounts in a separate blog link at www.whowhatwhy.com.   You can read his Dallas account here:

http://whowhatwhy.com/2013/10/24/bush-and-the-jfk-hit-part-6-the-cold-war-comes-to-dallas/

It's headed up:  A Cauldron of Right Wing Americans, Right Wing Russians, and Nazis

 Be thankful you're not living in the Dallas of 1963!


Q. Why do you think the American congress is so reluctant to put a leash on the NSA, especially after they have spied on European allies and broken into Google's cloud sites to collect so much data? - Gerhard Remke, Bielefeld, Germany

A. My suspicion is that the spooks have tons of stuff on all congress critters, so effectively the threat of black mail is enough to halt any ability to pass effective control legislation now. I also suspect that they have loads of material on Angela Merkel, France's François Hollande and the UK's David Cameron.  Given this hidden leverage it was no surprise all the allies could be deterred from accepting Edward Snowden as a whistle blower refugee. The leaders were all too intimidated to do so. To read more from the actual author of this theory, see:
 http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/dave-lindorff/52437/what-s-done-abroad-can-be-done-at-home-too-is-nsa-spying-really-about-blackmail

Pills Made From Poop? Don’t Laugh!

It's no laughing matter to those 550,000 in the U.S. who at some point each year - come down with c.diff. or clostridium difficile infection. C. diff. now kills 14,000 a year and is ranked by hospitals as one of the top two or three 'superbugs' getting out of control. This is especially as there are now too many cases in the community itself, outside of hospitals.

What is c. diff.? It's a bowel infection but that barely begins to describe it. My wife got it back in December, 2006, after taking a prescription of amoxicillin for a stubborn sinus infection. But within a few days, the antibiotic had eradicated nearly all the 'good' bacteria in her gut, paving the way for a much less benevolent (indeed, vile) gut bacteria to take up residence. This was none other than c.diff. Related to the botulism and tetanus bacteria, this bug is described in med lit as a "gram positive, anaerobic, spore -forming rod which exists as a non-infectous spore (in the gut) and as an infectious form that can't exist long in the environment for prolonged periods." It was the latter form that we suspected got released from latent spores that created havoc in Janice's intestinal tract - causing gallons of fluid to literally pour out - in up to 22-25 diarrhetic releases per day.

Within days she had to be hospitalized on account of dehydration, whereupon she was put on an antibiotic called flagyl- 2nd ranked to the univeral powerhouse vancomycin. But then the bug got through it within a week, so, she was re-hospitalized and this time - and had to be administered vancomycin. This time, after the new course and being isolated in her own room, it finally worked. Most of those who die do so after being left with peritonitis, toxic megacolon, and peforation of the colon - from the violent expulsive force (which I pointed out to my wife - seemed to resemble cholera).

Since that bout of c. diff. infection 7 years ago, medical centers have scrambled for a treatment that doesn't require use of antibiotics - given how close we are to full antibiotic resistance. (See the excellent PBS Frontline series on this ). One of the first alternative measures was the use of 'poop enemas' - delivered uniquely to the victim - harvested from her family and bearing loads of good gut bacteria. At some point the enemas result in the bad guys being overwhelmed by the good, and the gut health restored to normal.

Now, thanks to Canadian researchers such as Thomas Louie at the University of Calgary, an alternative method has been developed where, instead of using enemas - the healthy variety of poop is administered via pills. Basically, it's being described as a "less invasive way" to get healthy poop into guts ravaged by the deadly c.diff. bacteria. So far, according to reports in the Canadian press, clinicians have treated 27 people succesfully after antibiotics failed to alleviate symptoms. This is huge news given a particularly virulent form of infectious c.diff. is all but indifferent to even vancomycin.

The process of extraction and preparation, according to Dr. Louie, isn't that difficult. A relative is first brought in and assorted stools obtained. Next, the material is processed in the lab to remove food, extract the bacteria and clean it. The residue is then infused into triple-coated gel capsule capable of surviving all the way into the gut. Be aware, as Dr. Louie points out, there's no stool as such left, only the necessary bacteria. The c.diff. victims thus are not technically eating poop, but instead just "stool bugs" after stools have been processed, diluted, cleaned. There are no smelly "shit" burps because the contents aren't released until they are well passed the stomach.

Louie has thus far found that 24 to 36 capsules are generally needed for treatment and patients can down them in one sitting. The pills thereby find their way to the colon and seed it with the healthy bacteria.

Don't laugh! This is all quite true, and the treatment had been announced two weeks ago at an infectious disease conference in San Francisco. This may well be the remaining life saver left for many more patients who contract c. diff.

For those who still wonder why I never got treatment for my severe bronchitis reported back in July (July 7 blog post) it was because I feared the use of antibiotics and the triggering of c.diff. I am certain I have the spores residing in my gut and that they've been there since Janice was ill - perhaps picked up by contact with contaminated surfaces, and then ingested with food - by hand. Who knows? At least now, I am not so deadly paranoid of getting c.diff. if I do have to take antibiotics at some future date.