Comments on: You Should Be Really Scared of the CDC’s ‘Nightmare Bacteria’

By: Chad

Chad — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 15:50:31 +0000

There has been an abundance of research supporting that antibacterial soaps are not significantly more effective than non-antibacterial soaps.

By: Adam

Adam — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 04:49:43 +0000

To the last poster – I don’t think it’s fair to say this is an American-made crisis. Everybody likes anti-bacterial soap, no less so in India and Europe than in the US.

This was on track to occur since the discovery of penicillin, we were simply not capable of appreciating it to the extent of preventing it. We can only react to the new, existing threat – I hope big pharma is putting R&D dollars into nanotech.

In a sense, it’s a force of evolution – we react to our changing environment, hopefully such that we’re stronger because of it.

By: Ted

Ted — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 17:48:27 +0000

I’ve been hearing of a multiple-drug resistant “superbug” for a number of years. I never poo-pooed the warnings then and don’t now.

This seems like a man-made catastrophe, and an American one, specifically. With our tendency to ask for antibiotics for every sniffle, to the use of anti-bacterial soaps, we have diligently trained microbes to become resistant to antibiotics. And now, we have a potential epidemic with no nationalized system to try to contain it.

Are the chickens finally coming home to roost? Time will tell.