According to a recent CDC report titled, Lethal, Drug-resistant Bacteria Spreading in U.S. Healthcare Facilities, drug-resistant germs called carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriacea, or CRE, are on the rise and resistant to all, or nearly all of the antibiotics within the conventional drug armamentarium.
The CDC describe CRE bacteria as a "triple threat":
- Resistance: CRE are resistant to all, or nearly all, the antibiotics we have - even our most powerful drugs of last-resort.
- Death: CRE have high mortality rates - CRE germs kill 1 in 2 patients who get bloodstream infections from them.
- Spread of disease: CRE easily transfer their antibiotic resistance to other bacteria. For example, carbapenem-resistant klebsiella can spread its drug-destroying weapons to a normal E. coli bacteria, which makes the E.coli resistant to antibiotics also. That could create a nightmare scenario since E. coli is the most common cause of urinary tract infections in healthy people.
CRE are nightmare bacteria. Our strongest antibiotics don't work and patients are left with potentially untreatable infections. Doctors, nurses, hospital leaders, and public health, must work together now to implement CDC's "detect and protect" strategy and stop these infections from spreading. [emphasis added]'Nightmare Bacteria' or Rude Intellectual Awakening?
Truly this is a lesson in humility for the conventional medical system, and if the situation really is a "nightmare" as the CDC's Director describes, it will probably result in waking quite a few folks up, who despite appearing to have been awake were actually slumbering -- at least in the intellectual sense.
