Past Weekly News Roundups

According to researchers at Johns Hopkins University, reported that humans living near livestock in the Netherlands are at a significantly higher risk for contracting MRSA. The study found that doubling the density of pigs in a municipality increased the likelihood of a human in said municipality by 24.7%, while doubling the density of cattle increases the likelihood by 76.9%. emerging infectious disease

U.S. Representative Henry Waxman (D-California) has announced plans to propose a bill to improve the information release of antibiotics use in meat. This bill if passed would require drug manufacturers to provide the FDA with information on how there drugs are being used on farms. The consumers union has announced its support of the bill. farmfutures

Researchers at the CDC have announced results of a study which treated extensively resistant TB patients with the 12 year-old antibiotic Linezolib. Of the 39 patients treated 34 were cured of TB in 6 months. Linezolib has been used to treat other bacterial infections but was considered ineffective against TB until now. New England Journal of Medicine

Researchers at the University of California Irvine have announced that changes in hospital ICU practices would dramatically lower the number of patients being infected with MRSA. The changes would stop isolation of MRSA carriers but require all ICU patients’ skin be washed with chlorhexidine soap and application of mupirocin ointment to the nasal passages. The results of a study illustrated that these practices reduced the number of patients with MRSA bacteria living on their skin or in their noses, and reduced the number of infected patients by 44% . Healthcanal

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University have published a study testing a new malarial drug which is twice as effective as ACTs and requires only one easy dose instead of the complex ACTs in mice. In the mice that were tested, the mice treated with a single dose of trioxane had nearly double the survival time of the mice which received the multi-dose ACT option. Journal of Medicinal Chemistry

A recent study conducted by researchers at Virginia Tech University and Colorado State University has shown that there are high concentrations of antibiotic resistant bacteria downstream from many cities and towns. The study which examined the South Platte and Cache la Poudre rivers in Colorado found that there was a significant increase in antibiotic resistant bacteria downstream of human development versus upstream even though the human sewage was filtered to a wastewater treatment plant. Environmental Science and Technology

Researchers at John Hopkins University have published a study showing that the HIV treatment drug nelfinavir is effective at treating aggressive breast cancer in Mice. The drug must still go through human trials before it will be licensed for use as a breast cancer treatment. Journal of the National Cancer Institute