INTERESTING TIMES

We used to live in a world where people got sick from exposure to feces and lives were saved with antibiotics. Now we live in a world where people are dying from antibiotics and their lives are being saved by feces.
--a colleague

In the field, some practitioners will pack an open wound with black soil to help it heal. You can get black peat that is used for this purpose and others. It is not pasteurized or sterilized in any way; it is full of living organisms. After the battle of Shiloh in the US civil war, soldiers whose wounds glowed in the dark had better survival. The organism (Photorhabdus luminescens) that was growing in their wounds came from the guts of nematodes living in the soil. Presumably this organism outcompeted the pathogenic ones. This kind of antibiotic mechanism cannot be ignored when antibiotic drugs are increasing ineffective.

( More about the biology, and the source, behind cut. )

The Russians have known about phages and used them to treat severe infections since the 1930's. New research shows that lots of phages live in mucus. Wherever there is mucus there is likely to be a large population of phages--including mucus produced by other species such as sea coral, plants, etc.

Phages are viruses that use bacterial cells to replicate in. They can also insert new DNA into bacteria, and they are able to evolve quickly enough to keep up with changing resistance patterns. Big Pharma is not putting any money toward phage research because phage therapy would compete with antibiotic sales, and as we know, for them, the bottom line IS the bottom line. They want us to think that phages are dangerous. But according to Dr Mercola a normal human produces approximately a quart of mucus (snot) daily in the upper respiratory tract, most of which we swallow. So we are phage central already.
( notes from Mercola's new article on phages )

NOT GRAS per FDA
( notes )

Carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae, that is. It is resistant to nearly all antibiotics, and according to the Guardian killed 25,000 people in Europe last year. CRKP has been reported in 36 US states so far and is sure to be present in others. LA County longterm care facilities may have lots of it. Antibiotic resistant micro-organisms are best beaten using the naturopathic principle of strengthening the innate healing ability of the organism: there's no bug that can beat a healthy immune system!

SOURCE
http://current.com/news/93141801_antibiotic-superbugs-crkp-mrsa.htm?xid=PTNiGoog
( notes )

Pneumococcal Vaccine Dosing Schedule Linked to Higher Risk of Acquiring Multiresistant Strain and
Guidelines Updated for Use of 23-valent Pneumococcal Polysaccharide Vaccine in Adults
medscape articles posted by Laurie Barclay, MD
( notes from medscape keeping up with concerns and ACIP, these notes pulled for black book )

You've heard about antibiotic resistant staph infections. In Flagstaff they had several deaths in the hospital from so-called "flesh eating bacteria", but the media was muted about it. Nobody wants to know. I'm sure it happens a lot more than anyone really knows. Even the doctors don't want to think about it.

ACINETOBACTER BAUMANII
Acinetobacter baumanii is a gram negative rod that is a strict aerobe, non-motile and grows in reddish purple colonies. It is found everywhere in the soil, food, and water, and is normal flora of humans with 25% of people having it on their skin, and 75% of people have it on their pharynx. Because it lives on us all the time, it is subjected to all the antibiotics that people take, and so it has evolved to be highly antibiotic resistant. The only antibiotics that work at all against this bug have side effects like nausea/vomiting, siezures, and other toxicity. Soldiers who spend time in Iraqi hospitals often come home infected with it. It causes suppurative infections in any organ. The cost of war just got higher. Now we have this bug in our hospital systems, and it is gaining prevalence as a nosocomial infection. It most frequently causes pneumonia, but also infects the brains, eyes, hearts, bones and joints, blood, the pancreas, liver and urinary tract. You don't want it. Luckily, if you are healthy, it won't get you. You live in equilibrium with it. But if you are ever stretched to your last stand in a hospital, it may be something like this that finishes you off.

PSEUDOMONAS AERUGINOSA
A better known nosocomial infection is Pseudomonas aeruginosa. It is also a gram negative rod but is limited to where it can colonize because it is an obligate aerobe. So it only grows on surfaces where it has a good air supply, such as the insides of the lungs, or in burns. It also likes the respiratory mucus of cystic fibrosis patients. It grows into a thick "slime" which is actually a colony of bacteria that begins to function like a tissue. The outer layers that protect the inside from antibiotics or immune agents. The cells of the tissue signal each other, and when P. aeruginosa reaches a QUORUM it begins to turn on the genes that make it lethal. It produces a range of enzymes to digest tissues (known as invasins) and a couple of exotoxins that impair the host's ability to make proteins (exotox A) and cause part of the host's immune system to self destruct (the T cells are rapidly activated and apoptosis induced by exoenzyme S). If you grow the slime on an agar plate it looks blue-green and swells sweet, grapey by some reports. Don't let the sweet smell lull you.

Luckily for most of us, the slime never gets started good enough to slam us with its full power. Our immune systems and functioning respiratory cilia get that shit out. But if you're sick, and you go to the hospital, you don't want to know what I'm about to tell you. P. aeruginosa is the #2 cause of nosocomial pneumonia, osteochondritis and surgical site infections. It's the #3 cause of nosocomial UTI's. The #6 cause of nosocomial blood sepsis. It's the #1 cause of pneumonia in ICU patients, and is the most common cause of death among patients with cystic fibrosis. Once it reaches a quorum it is rapidly fatal. I have no idea if there are any antibiotics left that can kill it. And here's the topper. It lives in hot tubs and swimming pools. Don't let your immune system get beat down too far. These bugs are frightening.

Starting a new subject with a brand new teacher, and for once, I think the teacher is more nervous than the students. I hope he calms down enough to finish his sentences, and wait for that flash of awareness or recognition before he moves on to the next slide. I was left behind for most of his lecture, which was scattered and incomplete. The notes, furthermore, were incomplete (lacking images) and wildly disorganized (repetitive but without logic to the order). Welcome to NCNM.

But this study of microbes is very important, so I need to keep up with it. I have never taken microbio before. The closest I've come is learning about all the causes of food poisoning as part of becoming a Coconino County (Arizona) approved Food Manager (certified to supervise Food Handlers). So I will begin the process of transcribing my notes and looking up everything that I didn't get on the first run through.

First, a quiz:
A. What was the leading cause of blindness prior to 1800?
B. When was the first report of Helicobacter pylori, the bacterium now known to cause stomach ulcers?
C. What was the first commercial antibiotic, what was it for, and when was it produced?
D. What is the ultimate microbial symbiosis (from the human perspective)?
E. What specific state of infection contradicts Koch’s 3rd postulate?
F. What specific person has historically been used to contradict Koch’s Postulate?
( answers and notes )