Antibiotics

Hundreds of bacteria in soil can thrive with antibiotics as their sole source of nutrition, Harvard University researchers reported Friday in the journal Science. These bacteria outwit antibiotics in a disturbingly novel way, and now the race is on to figure out just how they do it -- in case more dangerous germs that sicken people could develop the same ability. The next step is to identify the actual genes that let these bacteria devour and degrade antibiotics. Then the question becomes whether that genetic mechanism is something soil bacteria might be able to transfer to human pathogens, thus making them more drug-resistant.

Nearly a third of the people who take antibiotics to cure an infection develop diarrhea when good bacteria in the intestines are killed off along with the bad. Some stop taking the drugs as a result, leading to problems such as failure to cure the infection or the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. But data from a large number of clinical trials compiled in a survey by researchers at the Rand Corp. show that consuming probiotics (beneficial bacteria) reduces the incidence of diarrhea by 42%. Probiotics are found at varying levels in yogurt and are also available as dietary supplements in most stores.

Tyson Foods Inc., the second-largest U.S. chicken producer, said it would discontinue its "Raised Without Antibiotics" label because of uncertainty over regulations. Tyson has asked the Department of Agriculture to clarify labeling and advertising rules, the Springdale, Ark.-based company said. A federal judge ordered Tyson in April to halt ads touting chicken as being "raised without antibiotics" after finding the claims to be misleading.

Voluntary guidelines for pharmaceutical companies will not wean the livestock industry off its addiction to antibiotics. Yet that's what the U.S. Food and Drug Administration - which has previously taken tentative steps to curb the agricultural use of antibiotics and is under a judge's order to carry out existing laws that call for limiting the overuse of two classes of antibiotics - is proposing. Obviously, the agency wants to avoid a protracted legal battle with producers, and its authority is limited by Congress' repeated refusal to act. But this latest plan falls far short of the decisive action needed to make a difference.

Acnemedications and treatments fill drug store shelves, but some acne sufferers may have a tough time discerning which are the best to use. A paper published online in the journal the Lancet finds that certain studies on acne remedies are few and far between. In a seminar in the journal researchers from the U.S. and the U.K. reviewed the current slate of treatments available, including topical treatments such as benzoyl peroxide, retinoids and topical antibiotics, and oral treatments such as antibiotics, contraceptives and isotretinoin (the last typically used to treat severe cases of acne)

California doctors should stop prescribing a widely used, inexpensive class of antibiotics to treat gonorrhea because a growing number of infections have grown resistant to the drugs, known as fluoroquinolones, federal health officials said Thursday. The antibiotic family includes Cipro, which gained fame last fall for treatment of inhalation anthrax.

I suffer from digestive upset when taking antibiotics, and I'd like to counter that with the probiotic bacteria in yogurt. Does taking antibiotics with yogurt affect absorption of antibiotics? It depends to a certain extent on the antibiotic, but many should not be taken within a few hours of yogurt or other calcium-rich foods. That includes antibiotics in the tetracycline family and drugs such as ciprofloxacin and norfloxacin, but not ofloxacin. Fruit juice fortified with calcium also can interfere with antibiotic absorption.

In the last few months, I have been put on various drugs for sinus problems. These include antibiotics like Tequin and Levaquin as well as prednisone. The prednisone made me squirrelly, so I stopped it with my doctor's OK. I was given another course of Levaquin for a bladder infection and started feeling panicky. Then my doctor put me on Zoloft to combat anxiety. Next, I began having full-blown panic attacks and a bout of depression.

The decision on whether to give young children antibiotics to treat ear infections has been swinging from one extreme to the other as conflicting clinical trials have pushed pediatricians first toward widespread use of antibiotics, then toward a “watch and wait” approach in which most infections seem to clear up on their own. Two new trials reported Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine are nudging the pendulum back toward...

We've all heard that the overuse of antibiotics is making them less effective and fueling the rise of dangerous drug-resistant bacteria. But did you know it may also be fueling the rise of obesity, diabetes, allergies and asthma? So says Dr. Martin Blaser , microbiologist and infectious disease specialist at New York University Langone Medical Center who studies the myriad bacteria that live on and in our bodies. He explains his theory in a commentary published in Thursday's edition of the journal Nature.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's proposal for voluntary guidelines that would wean livestock off  growth-inducing antibiotics left foodies and public health officials disappointed this week. “Nonbinding recommendations are not a strong enough antidote to the problem,” argued Rep. Louis Slaughter (D-N.Y.). Avinash Kar, public health staff attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, replied to the news with a statement equivalent to an eye roll: “We've essentially had a voluntary measure in place for 35 years since FDA first acknowledged the risks of using antibiotics in livestock feed, and we have seen the use of antibiotics grow exponentially in that period.” Food Politics' Marion Nestle was also frustrated: “I'm guessing this is the best the FDA can do in an election year,” she lamented , saying the proposal looked more like a “direct challenge to drug companies and meat producers to clean up their acts” than a real solution.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced Wednesday that it will ask livestock producers, drug companies and veterinarians to curb the use of antibiotics to promote growth in food-producing animals - a widespread practice that has been shown to create drug resistance in microbes.  The presence of such “superbugs,” as they're sometimes called, threatens public health because if they sicken humans, they can be impossible to treat....

No place on Earth demonstrates the resilience or inventiveness of life quite like Lechuguilla Cave, whose subterranean tunnels stretch for 130 miles through Carlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico. Deep in the cave's most arid recesses, deprived of all sunlight and mostly starved of life-giving water, a lush garden of bacteria grows. Untouched by humans for all of their 4 million years, these strains of bacteria thrive on the harsh minerals of the geological formations to which they cling and fend off other life forms that would prey on them.

The Food and Drug Administration must address the use of antibiotics in livestock, a federal judge in New York has ruled in a lawsuit, a signal that the FDA may soon ban the practice due to longstanding public health concerns. The ruling favors a coalition of plaintiffs including the Natural Resources Defense Council, which filed suit last May in a bid to push the FDA to exert more control over agricultural use of penicillin and tetracycline, two popular antibiotics used in feed to protect chickens, pigs and cattle from disease and speed their growth.

On the growing roster of antibiotic-resistant diseases, gonorrhea is the one that has most recently captured the attention of public health officials. Writing in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned last week that 1.7% of certain types of gonorrhea infections show little response to treatment , even with cephalosporins, the last line of antibiotic defense. That might not sound like a lot, but with 600,000 Americans diagnosed annually, resistant cases number about 10,000 a year, and that number has been rising fast.

Your article on the use of antibiotics in farm animals ["FDA Sets New Path on Animal Antibiotics," Jan. 9] fell short of presenting a complete picture of this important subject. I am just one person, and I know of four people who are experiencing the nightmare of having contracted an antibiotic-resistant strain of bacteria. My own son was hospitalized for three weeks with this, landing a medical discharge from the Army. In order to produce meat on the scale that Americans consume it, producers have to give the animals antibiotics.

The Food and Drug Administration must address the use of antibiotics in livestock, a federal judge in New York has ruled in a lawsuit, a signal that the FDA may soon ban the practice due to longstanding public health concerns. The ruling favors a coalition of plaintiffs including the Natural Resources Defense Council, which filed suit last May in a bid to push the FDA to exert more control over agricultural use of penicillin and tetracycline, two popular antibiotics used in feed to protect chickens, pigs and cattle from disease and speed their growth.

Your March 15 editorial, "It's a Matter of Health," raised the question of whether antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria, potentially harmful to humans, were created through use of low levels of antibiotics mixed with livestock feed to promote animal growth. Your readers should know that when this concern first was raised in the mid-1980s, the National Cattlemen's Beef Assn. and the California Cattlemen's Assn. discouraged the practice of "sub-therapeutic feeding" of antibiotics to cattle to promote growth.

When the U.S. Food and Drug Administration restricted the routine use of a class of antibiotics known as cephalosporins in livestock, it picked an easy target. The agency's move is better than nothing, but nonetheless it is a reminder of the FDA's achingly slow and timid efforts to wean agriculture off the overuse of important medications. Call it a tiptoe forward after a recent giant step in the other direction and a long era of standing in one place. Eighty percent of the antibiotics used in this country are given to chicken, pigs, turkey and cattle, not because the animals are sick but to fatten them and prevent illness from sweeping through crowded pens.