Health, Antibiotics | featured news

A terrible future could be on the horizon, a future which rips one of the greatest tools of medicine out of the hands of doctors. A simple cut to your finger could leave you fighting for your life. Luck will play a bigger role in your future than any doctor could. The most basic operations - getting an appendix removed or a hip replacement - could become deadly.

Scientists have found alarming levels of the lung disease tuberculosis in Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America that are resistant to up to four powerful antibiotic drugs. In a large international study published in the Lancet medical journal on Thursday, researchers found rates of both multi drug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) and extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB) were higher than previously thought and were threatening global efforts to curb the spread of the disease.

The Food and Drug Administration says it will limit the presence of one type of antibiotics in meat, saying they could increase human resistance to the drugs. The agency said Wednesday it will restrict the use of cephalosporin antibiotics, which are often given to cattle, swine, chickens and turkeys before slaughter. The drugs are used to treat pneumonia, skin infections and other diseases in humans.

An infectious-disease nightmare is unfolding: Bacteria that have been made resistant to nearly all antibiotics by an alarming new gene have sickened people in three states and are popping up all over the world, health officials reported Monday.

Actually, these healthy bacteria form the basis of our immune system -- or they did until we took antibiotics.