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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...

Whooping Cough Outbreak Communities throughout the U.S. are experiencing whooping cough (pertussis) outbreaks - the worst in 40 years. If the school nurse or the health department informs you that there is a pertussis outbreak in your school or community, you may need to call your pediatrician. The school or health department will tell you if your child was directly exposed and requires antibiotics. Health departments across the country are acting quickly to prevent the spread of pertussis, so your cooperation in contacting your pediatrician is crucial. Please follow the instruction of the health department. The care of children in...

Humans have been downing beer for millennia. In certain instances, some drinkers got an extra dose of medicine, according to an analysis of Nubian bones from Sudan in North Africa. George Armelagos is an anthropologist at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. For more than two decades, he and his colleagues have studied bones dated to between A.D. 350 and 550 from Nubia, an ancient kingdom south of ancient Egypt along the Nile River. The bones, the researchers say, contain traces of the antibiotic tetracycline. Today tetracycline is used to treat ailments ranging from acne flare-ups to urinary-tract infections. But the...

07/20/04 -- More and more common antibiotics are losing their effectiveness because they are used too often, allowing bacteria to develop resistance to the drugs. A University of Rhode Island researcher has found a solution to this problem with a natural compound that boosts antibiotic strength from 100 to 1,000 times. While conducting research on infection prevention, URI Microbiology Professor Paul Cohen stumbled upon a compound -- lysophosphatidic acid -- that is naturally produced in the human body in great quantities wherever there is inflammation.According to Cohen, bacteria are divided into two groups -- Gram-positive and Gram-negative -- based on...

The increasing use of antibiotics to treat disease may be responsible for the rising rates of asthma and allergies. By upsetting the body's normal balance of gut microbes, antibiotics may prevent our immune system from distinguishing between harmless chemicals and real attacks. "The microbial gut flora is an arm of the immune system," says Gary Huffnagle at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbour. His research group has provided the first experimental evidence in mice that upsetting the gut flora can provoke an allergic response. Asthma has increased by around 160 per cent globally in the last 20 years. Currently...

CDC Suggests Change in Treatment for Gay, Bisexual Men The number of gay and bisexual men who are getting infected with gonorrhea that cannot be cured by the most commonly used antibiotics is increasing rapidly, federal health officials said yesterday. Antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea more than doubled between 2002 and 2003, primarily because of a jump from a rate of 1.8 percent to 4.9 percent among gay and bisexual men, according to preliminary data collected at sexually transmitted disease clinics in 23 cities, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported. Massachusetts and New York City have reported similar findings. As...

A new chapter in the continuing story of antibiotic resistance is being written in doctors' offices across the country, as a group of common bacteria rapidly becomes resistant to the antibiotics that have been used to treat them for decades. The bacteria are called Staphylococcus aureus, or staph for short. Staph are the most common cause of skin infections like boils and can also cause lung infections, bloodstream infections and abscesses in the body's internal organs. In hospitalized patients, infections caused by antibiotic-resistant staph have been common for years. Among healthy people, though, antibiotic resistance in staph has not been...

Frequent use of antibiotics has been linked to a greater risk of breast cancer, say researchers who studied thousands of American women and found that those who took the drugs most often had twice the risk of the disease. The study uncovered a relationship between greater use of antibiotics and a heightened risk of breast cancer, but researchers sought to temper their findings by cautioning that they had only highlighted an association, not a causal link. "This is potentially worrisome, but we don't know why this connection exists, we only have an observation," said Dr. John D. Potter, director of...

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The use of antibiotics appears to be associated with an increased risk of breast cancer and fatal breast cancer, according to the results of a new study reported in this week's issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. However, the investigators add that although a relationship has been found, their findings do not prove that antibiotic use is the cause of breast cancer in these women and they note that other factors may be involved. Earlier reports have suggested a link between antibiotics and increased cancer risk, lead author Dr. Christine M. Velicer...

LONDON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - With "superbugs" stalking hospitals and old killers such as tuberculosis re-emerging, the world badly needs more powerful antibiotics. Yet the pipeline of new treatments is drying up as drugmakers -- citing poor financial returns -- focus instead on chronic conditions, such as high cholesterol, where medicines are taken for years rather than curing patients in one or two weeks. The shrinking of the medical armory is a growing worry for health care officials and has sparked a debate between regulators and pharmaceutical companies over ways to kick-start investment. "The relative lack of research on anti-microbials is...

<p>A dramatic shortage in the number of new antibiotics could create a public health crisis soon, infectious disease experts warn.</p> <p>Major pharmaceutical companies have abandoned or scaled back research and development of drugs that kill bacteria in favor of anti-viral drugs, such as those to combat HIV, and medicines for chronic conditions, such as high blood pressure and heart disease.</p>

Health Department works to educate on antibiotic misuse People see antibiotics as a cure-all, but inappropriate use can diminish the benefits, doctors say. By Allison Fashek rep8@wyomingnews.com Published in the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle CHEYENNE - When people get sick, they tend to want antibiotics. Jodee Tschirhart, nurse manager at the Cheyenne Children's Clinic, sees it on a daily basis. "They think antibiotics are a cure-all," she said. But as doctors have been saying for many years, taking antibiotics when you don't need them can cause the drugs not to work when you do need them. And the issue of drug resistance...

<p>ATLANTA (AP) &#8212; Health and sports officials are warning schools and sports teams about a hard-to-treat skin infection once common to hospitals and prisons, that's now attacking athletes on the playing field.</p> <p>The National Federation of State High School Associations sent a warning Tuesday to states about a staph infection that can't be cured by the usual penicillin-related antibiotics.</p>