We're all gonna die...of formerly curable diseases

It will come as no surprise, that I have been, and remain, pretty concerned about is antibiotic-resistant diseases. Fueling my fear, it seems almost every week I trip across yet another story describing a virulent strain of some disease that no longer responds to antibiotics, or that has shown a drastic uptick in the number of antibiotic-resistant cases. Being a person who loves to share what she has, even if it's bad news, I thought I'd share two stories I've come across lately. Here goes.

1. E. Coli That Cause Urinary Tract Infections are Now Resistant to Antibiotics

In examining more than 12 million urine analyses from [2000 to 2010], [a set of researchers at George Washington University] found that cases caused by E. coli resistant to ciprofloxacin grew five-fold, from 3% to 17.1% of cases. And E. coli resistant to the drug trimethoprim-sulfame-thoxazole jumped from 17.9% to 24.2%. These are two of the most commonly prescribed antibiotics used to treat UTIs. When they are not effective, doctors must turn to more toxic drugs, and the more those drugs are used, the less effective they in turn become. When those drugs stop working, doctors will be left with a drastically reduced toolkit with which to fight infection.

People suffered from UTIs long before antibiotics were discovered in the early twentieth century, of course. Should these drugs cease to be effective, we’ll have to go back to what we were doing before. The truth is, though, before antibiotics we had no real treatment. ...[At some points in time], as a last-ditch effort, [doctors] operated to drain puss from the infected kidneys and hoped the patient would survive.  (Source; all emphasis mine.)

Untreated UTIs can lead to kidney infections, kidney failure, and blood poisoning. As someone who had a kidney infection five or six years ago (though not one caused by a UTI), I can assure you that such infections are really no fun at all, as they involve sustained periods of intense fevers (upwards of 106 degrees), and  may require you to take yourself to the hospital emergency room, where you will need intravenous antibiotics, which will make you woozy, so they'll give you something else for that, and then because of the anti-wooze medicine, they won't let you drive your car home, so if you parked in the wrong parking structure you will end up having a parking ticket when you come back for your car the next day. Like I said: No fun at all. So it certainly doesn't warm my heart that UTIs are becoming meaner.

Here's the full article about the antibiotic-resistant UTI E. Coli on PubMed.

2. Tuberculoses (TB) has been making headlines for a while because of the virulent multi-drug-resistant strains that are going around. Not only does there exist a whole wikipedia article about "Multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis," but there's also one for "Extensively drug resistant tuberculosis" AND one for "Totally drug-resistant tuberculosis," which just proves how big a deal drug-resistant TB is becoming. When NPR did a whole thing about TB last month, I was convinced right-quick that I should run far, far away from anybody who might have TB. Or who has a cough. Or who has been near anyone with a cough. Because if you happen catch one of the nasty TB strains, your treatment will involve 28 MONTHS of pills and shots (13,664 pills, 244 shots), which come with side effects such as "permanent hearing loss, permanent dizziness, kidney damage, psychosis, liver failure, nausea, rashes"--one or more of which 33 percent of patients allegedly suffer. And after all that, only about 50 percent of people recover! And don't rest high and mighty thinking this is a disease that only people in other countries get. Just last month NPR reported on an outbreak of multiple-drug-resistant TB in Wisconsin. So there.

Want to know more? You probably don't. But just in case you do, the WHO is keeping a close eye on the everybody's-gonna-die-from-TB situation and has a ton of info about it. Based on very cursory perusal, I've learned that if you want to avoid people with TB, you'll probably want to avoid all the countries in darker greens on the map below, which have the most people with drug-resistant TB (in terms of absolute numbers):

Click to go to a map with interactivity!

And you'll REALLY want to avoid Khazakstan, Belarus, Moldova, and South Africa, which have the highest incidence of multiple-drug resistant TB.

The above travel tip will end Day 3 of my 30 days of content. I've got to be off to drink margaritas and eat tacos. Ole!