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OSLO, Norway – Aker University Hospital is a dingy place to heal. The floors are streaked and scratched. A light layer of dust coats the blood pressure monitors. A faint stench of urine and bleach wafts from a pile of soiled bedsheets dropped in a corner. Look closer, however, at a microscopic level, and this place is pristine. There is no sign of a dangerous and contagious staph infection that killed tens of thousands of patients in the most sophisticated hospitals of Europe, North America and Asia this year, soaring virtually unchecked. The reason: Norwegians stopped taking so many drugs.

US scientists are targeting an enzyme essential to bacterial metabolism in the search for new antibiotics.Michael Burkart of the University of California, San Diego, and Anton Simeonov from the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, and coworkers have developed a high-throughput kinetic assay to screen small molecules as inhibitors of surfactin-type phosphopantetheinyl transferase (Sfp-PPTase) enzymes.Transferases are among a group of enzymes that can add and remove groups from proteins after their polypeptide backbone has been built - a process known as posttranslational modification. The enzymes are of biological and pharmaceutical interest as their inhibitors have been suggested as avenues for antibacterial,...

People are less likely to get antibiotics for respiratory infections Since the mid-1990s, doctors have written fewer antibiotic prescriptions per year for respiratory infections, a new survey shows. The drop in these prescriptions in the United States per thousand people from 1995 to 2006 is 36 percent in children under age 5 and 18 percent among persons age 5 and up, researchers report in the Aug. 19 Journal of the American Medical Association. Many respiratory infections do not typically require antibiotics, including influenza, viral pneumonia, bronchitis, laryngitis, common colds and other infections caused by viruses. Infections more deserving of antibiotics...

Australian pharmaceutical firm, Biota, has said that Phase III trials of its new influenza drug laninamivir (CS-8958) have shown that a single inhaled dose of the drug was as effective as 10 doses of Roche’s Tamiflu administered orally over a 5 day period. The drug is a second generation neuraminidase inhibitor and is based on zanamivir, the active ingredient in Relenza, which Biota sold to GlaxoSmithKline. The study was conducted by Japanese pharma firm Daiichi Sankyo, which co-owns the drug, and included 1000 patients that had confirmed, naturally acquired influenza A or B. Preclinical studies have shown laninamivir to be...

The highest resolution snapshots yet showing how bacteria adapt to survive treatment with quinolone drugs are giving drug makers an additional weapon in the fight against antibiotic resistance. Scientists at King's College London and St. George's, University of London, have shown exactly how quinolones, which are the second line of defence against diseases like pneumonia and meningitis, interact with their topoisomerase IV enzyme target. The researchers captured detailed crystal structures using high power x-rays produced at the Diamond synchrotron in the UK and its French counterpart, Soleil. From these images the team has been able to identify the amino acids that mutate...

Scientists at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital have demonstrated a more effective treatment for bacterial pneumonia following influenza. They found that the antibiotics clindamycin and azithromycin, which kill bacteria by inhibiting their protein synthesis, are more effective than a standard first-line treatment with the "beta-lactam" antibiotic ampicillin, which causes the bacteria to lyse, or burst. The finding is important because pneumonia, rather than the influenza itself, is a principal cause of death from influenza in children and the elderly. During pandemics—such as the one that may arise from avian influenza—up to 95 percent of influenza deaths are due to pneumonia....

Earlier this year, Harold and Freda Mitchell of Como, Miss., both came down with a serious stomach bug. At first, doctors did not know what was wrong, but the gastrointestinal symptoms became so severe that Mrs. Mitchell, 66, was hospitalized for two weeks. Her husband, a manufacturing supervisor, missed 20 days of work. A local doctor who had worked in a Veterans Affairs hospital recognized the signs of Clostridium difficile, a contagious and potentially deadly bacterium. Although the illness is difficult to track, health officials estimate that in the United States the bacteria cause 350,000 infections each year in hospitals...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A bill that would ban the nontherapeutic use of antibiotics in animals would hurt the health of livestock and poultry while compromising efforts to protect the safety of the country's food supply, the leader of the largest U.S. farm group said on Tuesday. Bob Stallman, president of the 6 million-member American Farm Bureau Federation, said in a letter to Congress that its members "carefully, judiciously and according to label instructions" use antibiotics to treat, prevent and control disease in animals. "Antibiotic use in animals does not pose a serious public health threat," said Stallman, who urged lawmakers...

When Ruth Burns had surgery to relieve a pinched nerve in her back, the operation was supposed to be an "in-and-out thing," recalled her daughter, Kacia Warren. But Burns developed pneumonia and was put on a ventilator. Five days later, she was discharged -- only to be rushed by her daughter to the hospital hours later, disoriented and in alarming pain. Seventeen days after the surgery, the 67-year-old nurse was dead. Burns had developed meningitis -- an infection of the fluid that surrounds the spinal cord and brain. The culprit wasAcinetobacter baumannii, a bug that preys on the weak in...

For a full list of the 36 generic antibiotics offered for free by Stop & Shop, visit www.stopandshop.com/antibiotics Beginning Friday, Stop & Shop Supermarket pharmacies will offer free antibiotics to anyone with a doctor's prescription, a program the company says will help maintain the health of its customers in "a difficult economy." The director of Saint Mary's Health System's infectious disease and infection control department, however, says the program is misguided. The company, with headquarters in Quincy, Mass., has 251 stores with pharmacies in the Northeast. It announced this week it will offer a free 14-day supply for any of...

Giving antibiotics to patients in hospital intensive care units (ICUs) to prevent – rather than fight – bacterial infections may reduce the number of patient deaths, Dutch scientists report today in the New England Journal of Medicine. Despite the findings, some researchers remain skeptical whether the possible risks (most notably spurring new antibiotic resistant germs) outweigh the benefits of plying patients with antibiotics instead of using other more benign strategies such as hand-washing, isolating contagious patients and scrubbing hospitals with antiseptic cleansers.

MRSA, a drug-resistant germ, lurks in Washington hospitals, carried by patients and staff and fueled by inconsistent infection control. This stubborn germ is spreading here at an alarming rate, but no one has tracked these cases -- until now. Year after year, the number of victims climbed. But even as casualties mounted -- as the germ grew stronger and spread inside hospitals-- the toll remained hidden from the public, and hospitals ignored simple steps to control the threat. Over the past decade, the number of Washington hospital patients infected with a frightening, antibiotic-resistant germ called MRSA has skyrocketed from 141...

New England Tom Brady has undergone two more procedures to clean out infection on his surgically repaired knee, the Boston Herald reported. The newspaper said Brady is on a six-week course of intravenous antibiotics and will have follow-up exams at the clinic where he had the surgery.

HONEY, used for generations to soothe sore throats, could soon be substituted for antibiotics in fighting stubborn ear, nose and throat infections, according to a new study. Ottawa University doctors found in tests that ordinary honey kills bacteria that cause sinus infections, and does it better in most cases than antibiotics. The researchers have so far tested manuka honey from New Zealand, and sidr honey from Yemen. "It's astonishing," researcher Joseph Marson said of bees' unexplained ability to combine the nectar of flowers into a seemingly potent medicine. The preliminary tests were conducted in laboratory dishes, not in live patients,...

'Time-travelling' bugs resist antibiotics of the future 12:42 06 June 2008 NewScientist.com news service Ewen Callaway Bacteria lurking in soil in the 1960s and 70s resist an antibiotic that didn't exist until decades later. Three strains of what amount to future-predicting bacteria showed extreme resistance to six common antibiotics, including ciprofloxacin, which was first sold in 1989. "You can pretty safely say that there is no way these bacteria have seen them before," says Cristiane San Miguel, a microbiologist at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, US. She presented the findings this week at the American Society for Microbiology's...

Researchers hunting for new antibiotics might get some aid from gator blood. Scientists are zeroing in on snippets of proteins found in American alligator blood that kill a wide range of disease-causing microbes and bacteria, including the formidable MRSA or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. Previous experiments have revealed that gator blood extract cripples many human pathogens, including E. coli, the herpes simplex virus and some strains of the yeast Candida albicans. The serum's antimicrobial power probably derives from protein bits called peptides. Widespread among reptiles and amphibians, several such germ-fighting peptides have been isolated from the skin of frogs in recent...

AP Medical Writer Antibiotics for breakfast? The drugs are supposed to kill bacteria, not feed them. Yet Harvard researchers have discovered hundreds of germs in soil that literally gobble up antibiotics, able to thrive with the potent drugs as their sole source of nutrition. 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. On the other hand, the work explains why the soil doesn't harbor big antibiotic buildups despite use of the...

You can’t help but feel a little sorry for Amanda Beck. She’s a reporter from Reuters who was among the first to cover a new study conducted by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, which warns about an outbreak of a virulent, drug-resistant, and potentially deadly strain of Staph infection afflicting certain segments of the homosexual community. Although outbreaks of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, have primarily been confined to hospitals in the past, the study determined that, due to “high risk behaviors” beyond hospital walls — such as “anal sex” — men who have sex with men...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 22 /Christian Newswire/ -- Because Concerned Women for America (CWA) cares deeply for the health and well being of all Americans, CWA is sending letters inviting the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, GLAAD and Lambda Legal to put aside profound ideological differences with CWA — for the sake of the lives and health of their members — and to call for commonsense steps to help curb the spread of a potentially deadly strain of Staph infection. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA bacteria, is infecting men who have sex with men in major...

Scientists Strike Blow In Superbugs Struggle ScienceDaily (Dec. 11, 2007) — Scientists from The University of Manchester have pioneered new ways of tweaking the molecular structure of antibiotics -- an innovation that could be crucial in the fight against powerful super bugs. The work was led by chemical biologist Dr Jason Micklefield in collaboration with geneticist Professor Colin Smith. Scientists working in The School of Chemistry and the Manchester Interdisciplinary Biocentre have paved the way for the development of new types of antibiotics capable of fighting increasingly resistant bacteria. Micklefield, Smith and colleagues were the first to engineer the biosynthesis...

(BEIJING)--The medicine cabinet in the average U.S. home is filling with drugs made in China, and some experts say that could be a prescription for trouble. China’s booming pharmaceutical industry has doubled exports to the United States in the past five years, undercutting competitors and making American consumers reliant on the safety of Chinese factories and captive to any disruptions in Sino-U.S. commerce. It might seem like merely a trade issue. But industry experts in Europe and the United States say that national security concerns are edging into the debate. Consider this scenario: If a major anthrax attack were to...

AP Business Writer Tyson Foods Inc. plans to revise labels that say its fresh chicken is "raised without antibiotics" after the U.S. Department of Agriculture said it made a mistake in approving labels that use that term. The world's largest meat processor said it has been in discussions with the USDA since at least September about the label it introduced this summer in a major marketing campaign for its fresh chicken. According to a Nov. 6 letter from the USDA, the agency told Tyson it had mistakenly overlooked a feed additive, called ionophores, used for Tyson's chicken when it approved...

Close window Published online: 6 September 2007; | doi:10.1038/news070903-14 Radicals unite antibiotics Drugs that target different pathways share a way to kill bacteria.Mary Muers One mechanism of action binds together three major types of antibiotics.Punchstock The discovery of a common mode of killing shared by different types of antibiotic could lead to the creation of superdrugs, researchers suggest. Antibiotics are known to attack different vital processes in bacteria. But a study published in Cell1 today has revealed that three major classes of unrelated drugs use the same ultimate weapon to finish off the infectious critters. All of them force...

Research into the way antibiotics work could make them more effective weapons in the battle against bacteria. Researchers have learned that all three major classes of antibiotics kill bugs by boosting levels of free radicals, destructive molecules which damage DNA and cell membranes. The new findings could aid the development of new anti-bacterial drugs, and help scientists overcome resistance to existing antibiotics. One way bacteria become drug resistant appears to be through their in-built DNA repair mechanism, which kicks in after exposure to free radicals. "Our findings suggest that if you could shut off the bacteria's repair response, you might...

CAPE CORAL - Publix supermarket chain said today it will make seven common prescription antibiotics available for free, joining other major retailers in trying to lure customers to their stores with cheap medications. The oral antibiotics, representing the most commonly filled at the chain's pharmacies, will be available at no cost to anyone with a prescription as often as they need them, Publix CEO Charlie Jenkins Jr. said. Fourteen-day supplies of the seven drugs will be available at all 684 of the chain's pharmacies in five Southern states. The prescription antibiotics available under the program are amoxicillin, cephalexin, penicillin VK,...

Source: Society of Chemical Industry Date: August 1, 2007 Instant Steam Takes On Antibiotic Resistant 'Superbugs' Like MRSA Science Daily — A method for making instant steam, without the need for electricity, promises to be useful for tackling antibiotic resistant 'superbugs' like MRSA and C. difficile, as well as removing chewing gum from pavements and powering environmentally friendly cars, reports Nina Morgan in Chemistry & Industry, the magazine of the SCI. 'The value of instant steam lies in creating truly portable steam that can be generated intermittently on demand,' says Dave Wardle, business development director at Oxford Catalysts. The company...

In Mexico, pharmacies don't require a prescription for antibiotics. They are sold like most cold remedies here are, over the counter. It has come to the attention of the Bradley County District Attorney's office that this practice has found its way here. District Attorney General Steve Bebb has issued a warning for stores that cater to hispanic customers that the stocking and sale of antibiotics in the United States by anyone but a licensed pharmacologist filling a legal prescription will not be tolerated. The warning came in the form of a bi-lingual notice that was distributed to law enforcement agencies...

The use of antibiotics in the first year of life is associated with an increased risk for asthma at age 7, a new study has found, and the reason may be that antibiotics destroy not only disease-causing microbes, but also those that are helpful to the developing immune system. Antibiotic use had a greater impact on children who would otherwise be considered at lower risk — children who lived in rural areas and those whose mothers did not have asthma — than on those who were already at increased risk because of an urban environment or genetic predisposition. Studies of...

Associated Press NEW YORK -- NEW YORK Tyson Foods will no longer use antibiotics to raise chicken that is sold fresh in stores and will launch a $70 million advertising campaign to tout the shift, the nation's largest meat producer said Tuesday. The company said fresh chicken raised without antibiotics was shipped to stores Monday and will be sold beginning later this week in packaging that emphasizes that there are no artificial ingredients. "We're providing mainstream consumers with products they want," Tyson Chief Executive Richard L. Bond said at a news conference. Consumers will have to pay slightly more for...

The rates of drug-resistant gonorrhea in the United States have increased so greatly in the last five years that doctors should now treat the infection with a different class of antibiotics, the last line of defense for the sexually transmitted disease, officials said yesterday. The percentage of drug-resistant gonorrhea cases among heterosexual men jumped, to 6.7 percent in 2006 compared with 0.6 percent in 2001, officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. Standard monitoring of gonorrhea cases is conducted among men who go to S.T.D. clinics. New data from such sites in 26 cities show that rates...

Close window Published online: 4 April 2007; | doi:10.1038/news070402-6 Weak drug combos find new useAntibiotics that don't work could beat back resistant bacteria.John Whitfield You would think that a combination of antibiotics that is less effective than either drug on its own would be fairly useless. But researchers now say that such ineffectual mixes could be used in the campaign against resistance to the drugs. The counterintuitive conclusion comes from the observation — so far seen only in the lab — that less-effective drug mixes allow bacteria that are sensitive to drugs to out-compete those that are resistant them....

Tie ban for doctors to stop spread of MRSA By Alex Berry Last Updated: 2:35am GMT 18/12/2006 Doctors have been ordered to ditch their ties over fears they are spreading the deadly hospital superbug MRSA. An NHS trust has also told all its staff involved in direct patient care not to wear jewellery, wrist watches, scarves or any "superfluous clothing". Even consultants have been warned that being smartly-dressed when giving patients bad news could present an infection risk. The move, by Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust, follows a report by the British Medical Association calling for doctors to...

About 1.7 million people die from TB globally each year A "virtually untreatable" form of TB has emerged, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Extreme drug resistant TB (XDR TB) has been seen worldwide, including in the US, Eastern Europe and Africa, although Western Europe has had no cases. Dr Paul Nunn, from the WHO, said a failure to correctly implement treatment strategies was to blame. TB experts have convened in Johannesburg, South Africa, to discuss how to address the problem. TB presently causes about 1.7 million deaths a year worldwide, but researchers are worried about the emergence of...

In April 2005, Sara Stephan, a 13-year old in Charleroi, Pa., developed what looked like a pimple on her cheek. A blemish on a teenager is not exactly cause for alarm, but her mother, Carla Stephan, became concerned when it started to spread and swell. “Her whole cheek got big and red,” she said. Next, a similar lesion above Sara’s eye. Then, she got one the size of a softball on her buttock, and several more on her thighs. Tests showed that Sara had a particularly persistent and sometimes deadly bacterial infection known as methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, often abbreviated as...

Health Department says it did not give antibiotics to an 18-year-old woman who later died of meningococcal disease because it was "following national guidelines". The department's director-general, Robyn Kruk, announced an external review yesterday into the handling of the case of Jehan Nassif, of Yagoona, who died on Friday morning. Ms Nassif died less than three days after a visit to Bankstown Hospital to see her boyfriend's cousin, Elias Khouzame, who had the disease. Ms Nassif's boyfriend, George Khouzame, 19, had caught a Gulf Air flight home on Monday with Elias and two other relatives from a holiday in Greece....

It begins as microscopic bacteria that invades the intestine with the potential to kill in extreme cases, or cause severe bouts of diarrhea in other instances. Probably a hundred cases have occurred in the past year in the Antelope Valley, though most of those stricken with Clostridium difficile survived, according to Dr. Michael Cohen, an infectious diseases specialist in Lancaster who tends to patients at Antelope Valley and Lancaster Community hospitals. "We've had cases at both hospitals," Cohen said. "Cases have been documented nationwide. At least three patients in Antelope Valley died." Deaths usually result from one of two conditions:...

Cutting the length of time that patients take certain antibiotics could help to tackle the rise in drug resistance. So say the authors of a study showing that just three days' worth of drugs can fight pneumonia just as well as a longer treatment. Many antibiotics are prescribed for a week, ten days, or more, and patients are usually told to finish the course of pills to ensure that all the infection-causing bugs are eradicated. It is widely thought that not finishing the full course of drugs may allow a few of the hardiest bugs to linger, raising the risk...

CHICAGO - Buying organic milk these days - or organic apples, eggs, or beef - no longer has to mean an extra trip to a Whole Foods supermarket or the local co-op. Organic products now line the shelves at Safeway and Costco. And Wal-Mart - already the nation's largest organic-milk seller - says it wants to sell more organic food. Large companies including Kraft, General Mills, and Kellogg own sizable organic- and natural-food brands. Now, they are developing organic versions of their own products, too. Still, while some organic-food fans welcome its broadening appeal and availability, others worry that the...

Darwinian evolution follows very few of the available mutational pathways to attain fitter proteins, researchers at Harvard University have found in a study of a gene whose mutant form increases bacterial resistance to a widely prescribed antibiotic by a factor of roughly 100,000. Their work indicates that of 120 harrowing, five-step mutational paths that theoretically could grant antibiotic resistance, only about 10 actually endow bacteria with a meaningful evolutionary advantage. The research is described this week in the journal Science. "Just as there are many alternate routes one might follow in driving from Boston to New York, one intrinsic property...

ATLANTA, March 21 — Antibiotic resistance has long been an important human health problem. But now it is also showing up in a small but growing number of pets in this country, Canada and Europe, scientists and federal health officials said on Tuesday at the International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases here. The health officials said they did not want to sound too loud an alarm. But they said they wanted to learn more about the problem that has developed involving the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus, the most common cause of staphylococcal infections among people. The same genetic strains of S....

Gov. George Pataki remained hospitalized Monday nearly a week after undergoing a surgery to correct a postoperative complication related to an emergency appendectomy. Pataki, 60, continued eating some food Monday but also remained on intravenous nutrition and antibiotics to reduce the risk of an abscess... `The governor's doctors have indicated that there has been a slow return of normal digestive function because of the ruptured appendix,'' ... Pataki was originally to be released two days after the Feb. 16 appendectomy. ``The governor continues to be in good spirits and is reading, walking around and conducting state business,'' ...

POSTED: 12:01 am PST February 21, 2006 UPDATED: 9:25 am PST February 21, 2006 SEATTLE -- A 6-year-old Bellingham boy is fighting to survive a deadly infection that's killing the tissue in his face. Jake Finkbonner has necrotizing faciitis, a ravaging bacteria. Finkbonner was airlifted from Bellingham to Children's Hospital a week ago. He's had three surgeries so far to try to save his life. The problem started when the boy received a fat lip from a fall at a basketball game. Jake's father, Donny Finkbonner, said surgeons worked on his son the night he was brought to Children's Hospital...

TRENTON, N.J. - New Jersey is among the states seeing an increase in deaths from an intestinal bacterial infection that most often strikes older hospital patients who have taken antibiotics. National occurrences are up as well because, officials say, an overuse of antibiotics for other ailments is killing off the "good" bacteria that used to control the growth of Clostridium difficile bacterium. In the Garden State, the number of deaths attributed to the infection has doubled since 1997. State hospital discharge data reviewed by The Record of Bergen County found the infection has sickened 10,000 New Jerseyans a year, killing...

ORLANDO, Fla. -- A Sanford mother says she will never be able to hold her newborn because an Orlando hospital performed a life-altering surgery and, she claims, the hospital refuses to explain why they left her as a multiple amputee. The woman filed a complaint against Orlando Regional Healthcare Systems, she said, because they won't tell her exactly what happened. The hospital maintains the woman wants to know information that would violate other patients' rights. Claudia Mejia gave birth eight and a half months ago at Orlando Regional South Seminole. She was transported to Orlando Regional Medical Center in Orlando...

Survey of bacteria reveals an array of antibiotic-resistance. Bacteria that live in soil have been found to harbour an astonishing armoury of natural weapons to fight off antibiotics. The discovery could help researchers anticipate the next wave of drug-resistant 'superbugs'. Researchers have long known that soil-dwelling bacteria make natural antibiotics, and that they have inbuilt ways to survive their own and other bugs' toxins; in some cases, the genes that help them dodge antibiotics have transferred into infectious bugs that plague humans. Microbiologists have identified a few of the ways that soil microbes neutralize antibiotics. But Gerard Wright and his...

Last month brought fresh evidence that while small, bacteria can certainly look out for themselves. Clostridium difficile, a microbe that can cause serious digestive illness and death in vulnerable patients in hospitals and nursing homes but rarely bothers healthy adults outside healthcare settings, was blamed by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for doing just that in four states. Like many other germs, it apparently had mutated, under pressure from antibiotics, into a toxic new strain. ~snip~ Military service members injured in Iraq and Afghanistan increasingly are coming home with Acinetobacter baumannii, a potent microbe that causes pneumonia...

Deadly bacteria spreading through US hospitals A lethal bacteria which surfaces in people being treated with antibiotics is spreading in North America and has grown resistant to drugs, according to two studies published Friday in the New England Journal of Medicine. According to one of the studies, a new, virulent and resistant strain of the bacteria Clostridium difficile broke out in eight US hospital centers between 2000 and 2003. Provoked by antibiotics inside the intestines of hospital patients, the bacteria showed an ability to mutate and increase its resistance to drugs, the report said. Moreover, the bacteria, which infects the...

Significant numbers of chickens on sale in UK shops are contaminated with superbugs, a scientific survey commissioned by BBC One's Real Story suggests.Of the British-grown chickens analysed, over half were contaminated with multi-drug resistant E.coli which is immune to the effects of three or more antibiotics. More than a third of the 147 samples, which included overseas and UK produced chicken, had E.coli germs resistant to the important antibiotic Trimethoprim which is used to treat bladder infections. The Health Protection Agency scientists testing the meat also found 12 chickens had antibiotic resistant Campylobacter. And VRE, or Vancomycin Resistant Enteroccci, were...

Crocodile blood may yield powerful new antibiotics By Michael Perry Tue Aug 16, 1:05 AM ET SYDNEY (Reuters) - Scientists in Australia's tropical north are collecting blood from crocodiles in the hope of developing a powerful antibiotic for humans, after tests showed that the reptile's immune system kills the HIV virus. The crocodile's immune system is much more powerful than that of humans, preventing life-threatening infections after savage territorial fights which often leave the animals with gaping wounds and missing limbs. "They tear limbs off each other and despite the fact that they live in this environment with all these...

HONG KONG - Chinese farmers, acting with the approval and encouragement of government officials, have tried to suppress major bird flu outbreaks among chickens with an antiviral drug meant for humans, animal health experts said. International researchers now conclude that this is why the drug will no longer protect people in case of a worldwide bird flu epidemic. China's use of the drug amantadine, which violated international livestock guidelines, was widespread years before China acknowledged any infection of its poultry, according to pharmaceutical company executives and veterinarians. Since January 2004, avian influenza has spread across nine East Asian countries, devastating...