Penicillin

Penicillin antibiotics are the most commonly prescribed medication to treat drug allergies. Although the usual allergic reaction to penicillin is a rash, severe anaphylactic reactions also occur, and are believed to result in an estimated 400 to 800 deaths annually. If you are allergic to penicillin, avoid taking it or any antibiotics that are closely related to it. Some examples of types of penicillin are amoxicillin, ampicillin and bacampicillin.

SAN FRANCISCO - David Perlman had two deadlines on his mind as he elbowed his way through the Exploratorium, cane in one hand, notebook in the other. As the San Francisco Chronicle's veteran science writer, Perlman has been covering the granddaddy of hands-on science museums since it was just a glimmer of an idea in the fertile mind of physicist Frank Oppenheimer, the "uncle of the atom bomb. " Now, after 43 years in the elegant but drafty Palace of Fine Arts, the museum was getting ready to close before moving to new digs on the Embarcadero, and it was Perlman's job to chronicle the last day in its original home.

In a disturbing sign of the growing danger of drug-resistant microbes, a new federal survey of people with pneumococcal infections found that 25% had strains resistant to penicillin, which was once nearly infallible in killing the bugs. That figure is a thousand times greater than estimates made only a decade ago, indicating that antibiotic-resistant pneumococcus germs have spread quickly and are now more common than researchers believed.

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.

Many people who believe they're allergic to penicillin might be able to tolerate the antibiotic. Previous studies had found that about 60% of people who had an initial allergic reaction to penicillin suffered hives, wheezing or anaphylaxis after it was prescribed a second time. But in reviewing 3 million electronic medical records of British patients who received penicillin from 1987 to September 2001, University of Pennsylvania researchers found that 6,000 suffered an initial allergic reaction.

A doctor testified that the baby daughter of a Christian Science couple would be "alive and in the world today" if she had received penicillin along with the prayers said for her. "I pray every day for all of my patients," Dr. Michael Witwer, a specialist in infectious diseases, said at a preliminary hearing. "But prayer alone would not do it in this case. I also feel that the gift of penicillin is a gift from God."

Could the use of nanosilver products create another problem for medicine -- strains of bacteria that are resistant to silver? Although silver is not used to treat disease, it is used in hospital settings to speed wound-healing, prevent eye infections in newborns and as a coating for catheters, where it can cut infection rates. Here, too, there is much surmise and not much evidence, although researchers do know there are strains of bacteria that have developed resistance to silver.

Los Angeles County health officials reported that cases of a penicillin-resistant strain of gonorrhea numbered 489 in 1985, up 71% from the reported cases in 1984. Nevertheless, Dr. Surekha Mishal, assistant chief of the Los Angeles County sexually transmitted disease control program, said the disease, known as PPNG for penicillinase-producing Neisseria gonorrhoea, accounted for only 0.8% of the reported cases of gonorrhea in the county last year.

Santa Ana-based Adohr Farms on Friday recalled more than 30,000 gallons of milk and other dairy products contaminated with penicillin, but as much as 5,000 gallons of the tainted product may have been sold, officials said. The milk, which contains beta-lactam, an antibiotic residue of penicillin, could cause an allergic reaction in some people, but does not pose a general health risk, state health officials said.

Your May 18 article on the possible relationship of cancer growth in mice to the antihistamines loratadine, astemizole and Atarax is of interest, but need not be of concern to allergy sufferers. There is published data showing that cancer occurs less commonly in individuals with allergic disease, indicating that histamine, the chemical that causes sneezing and running of the nose, may protect against tumor growth. Other articles refute the concept that individuals with allergies have less cancer.

Southern California's supermarket price war found a new front Wednesday when Stater Bros. started filling a selection of antibiotic prescriptions for free. Albertsons said that it would match the offer at the Albertsons Sav-on Pharmacies in its stores, but that customers would have to ask for the deal. Vons said it had no plans to follow Stater Bros. Ralphs also said it would not match the offer but might introduce a similar program at a later date. Analysts said the move was part of a recession-fueled battle for customers among the large grocery chains.

Morris F. Collen, M.D., is a pioneer in harnessing the vast power of computers to improve healthcare. He is hip-deep in studying the ways that prescription drugs could interact and harm the elderly. He's hard at work on his sixth book. But he just might be most proud of his brand new driver's license. "Can I show you something you'll never see again?" Collen asks, reaching for his well-used billfold. He pulls out the rectangle of pedestrian plastic. He points to the date of birth: 11-12-13.

Could the use of nanosilver products create another problem for medicine -- strains of bacteria that are resistant to silver? Although silver is not used to treat disease, it is used in hospital settings to speed wound-healing, prevent eye infections in newborns and as a coating for catheters, where it can cut infection rates. Here, too, there is much surmise and not much evidence, although researchers do know there are strains of bacteria that have developed resistance to silver.

SOME wonder drugs have a longer day in the sun than do others. Many people today have never heard of sulfa drugs, but in their time they were considered quite miraculous. And miracles they were indeed, for when they came onto the market in the 1930s, they were the first drugs that could fight systemic bodily infections, even in their most dreaded forms of streptococcus and staphylococcus.

Monroe J. Romansky, an infectious-disease doctor who in the 1940s developed a beeswax-and-peanut oil formula that prolonged the duration of penicillin in the body, has died. He was 95. He died Aug. 12 at a Washington, D.C., hospital of complications from Alzheimer's disease. Romansky's Formula, as his discovery came to be known, transformed the treatment of wartime infectious diseases, such as syphilis and pneumonia.

The Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center administered the wrong kind of penicillin to more than 650 patients treated for syphilis or who had reported having contact with someone known or believed to have the disease, a federal investigation has shown. That's more than twice as many patients as previously believed.

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.

A young man has a troublesome toenail worked on by a physician with the result that he loses the toenail. He subsequently becomes known to his California surfing buddies as "Hang Nine" instead of "Hang Ten." He goes to court against his doctor and wins $75,000. Ridiculous? Of course but unfortunately true. And it's the logical counterpoint to the kind of thinking demonstrated by Kussman. The state's Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act puts a $250,000 cap on non-economic ("pain and suffering")

Jasper Herbert Kane, 101, a biochemist who suggested that antibiotics could be made in mass quantities rather than dose by dose, died Tuesday in Boca Raton, Fla., of natural causes associated with aging. Born in Brooklyn, Kane by age 16 was working at its Chas. Pfizer & Co. plant, which then manufactured chemicals for the food and drink industry. He studied nights at the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn (now Polytechnic University) and graduated in 1928.

Many people who believe they're allergic to penicillin might be able to tolerate the antibiotic. Previous studies had found that about 60% of people who had an initial allergic reaction to penicillin suffered hives, wheezing or anaphylaxis after it was prescribed a second time. But in reviewing 3 million electronic medical records of British patients who received penicillin from 1987 to September 2001, University of Pennsylvania researchers found that 6,000 suffered an initial allergic reaction.