Superbugs - The End of Antibiotics?

It’s likely we all know a mom who, at the first sign of a sniffle, will race her child to a doctor, demanding an antibiotic.

In many cases, she’ll get one, even if the drug that wipes out bacteria won’t do a thing to help the kid get better any faster.

What it is doing, however, is helping to create mutant strains of bacteria that are immune to chemical intervention.

And that could kill us. In fact, it already is. (Ref. 1)

CDC says don’t worry about drug-resistant infection

Earlier this week, a woman in Pennsylvania was the first in the United States to be diagnosed with a strain of E. coli that was found to be resistant to a barrage of drugs including the last-resort anti-bacterial drug colistin. (Ref. 2)

That particular drug is kept in reserve for use against superbugs when none of the other antibiotic heavy hitters does any good, and it is, “the very last option when a patient is being literally eaten alive by antibiotic-resistant bacteria,” according to Mike Adams in Natural News. (Ref. 1)

The bacteria has already turned up in Europe and Asia, where the medical community has also avoided creating new antibiotics because of the low profit margins associated with them. (Ref. 3)

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention initially downplayed the incident in Pennsylvania, saying there was little risk to the rest of the public, but eventually had to face the real risks associated with the superbug.

“It is the end of the road for antibiotics unless we act urgently,” said the director of the CDC. (Ref. 3)

What is happening, said Adams, is “a medical apocalypse,” with nothing left in the pharmaceutical industry’s arsenals to treat superbugs - the most dangerous mutant bacteria. (Ref. 1)

Early warnings easily ignored

For decades, experts have been talking about the dangers of all things antibiotic, from antibacterial liquids and sprays to the overuse of antibiotics themselves.

“Today we can list a number of organisms in both hospitals and the community that thwart treatment because they are resistant to not one, but to many different antibiotics,” wrote Stuart Levy, Center for Adaptation Genetics and Drug Resistance, Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston. (Ref. 4)

That was back in 2002.

But we haven’t been listening, and have still been using a model for health care established back in 1928, when Andrew Fleming discovered penicillin and all its benefits. (Ref.1)

Now, we’re not only faced with a potential pandemic if the strain of E. coli infecting the Pennsylvania woman spreads, but we’re also looking at the very real risk of more drug-resistant strains of bacteria, all caused by exposure to antibiotics and antibacterial products that maim but don’t kill.

Currently, more than 1.2 million people worldwide die each year from hospital infections, almost one-fifth of them from superbugs. With a colistin-resistant strain’s arrival, that number is certain to grow. (Ref. 1)

A report from the United Kingdom offered grim statistics suggesting that superbugs will kill more people than cancer by 2050. (Ref. 3)

So what happened?

For years, the pharmaceutical industry has been flooding the market with a wide range of antibiotics, designed to help fight various viruses.

In many cases, people happily gobbled the pills, stopping when they felt better.

The resulting consequence of leaving behind antibiotics in the pill bottle is that the bacteria they were fighting wasn’t killed, but suppressed, allowing it to regroup as a mutant virus with a resistance to antibiotics.

Antibacterial liquids – that ubiquitous hand sanitizer included – have also helped generate mutants, because they very rarely kill off bacterial entirely. Long-term exposure to chemicals also leads to drug-resistant bacteria because over time, bacteria become immune. (Ref. 1)

Accentuating the problem are antibiotics used on livestock, which make up 80 percent of the total antibiotic usage in the United States. North Carolina livestock were given more antibiotics than the entire population of the United States, ensuring that consumers take in low levels of antibiotics every time they sit down for a meal.

The strain of colistin-resistant E. coli that turned up in Pennsylvania is believed to have originated in China, where antibiotics are also used for livestock, and it has been found in one U.S. pig. (Ref. 3)

Is there an answer?

It sounds dire and damning, but even as nature renders bacteria immune to medicine, it also offers ways to sidestep the pharmaceutical industry and reinforce our immunity.

Levy told us that back in 2002 as well.

“One action is to re-introduce a susceptible, competitive flora” through probiotics, Levy wrote. (Ref. 3)

Probiotics help replace good bacteria that are also killed by antibiotics, recreating a healthy immune system that’s better able to fight off antibiotic-resistant bugs.

Adding a supplement such as Xtend-Life’s Kiwi-Klenz, which helps support the immune system in two ways – it provides prebiotics that feed existing probiotics while helping to encourage the growth of new ones, and phenolics to help support the body’s ability to suppress unhealthy bacteria – can help mitigate the damage caused by the pharmaceutical industry, naturally. (Ref. 5)

References

1. http://www.naturalnews.com/054201_antibiotic_resistant_superbugs_colistin_natural_antibiotics.html
2. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/nightmare-antibiotic-resistant-superbug-whats-the-risk/
3. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/superbugs-100-trillion-risk-vikram-mansharamani?trk=hp-feed-article-title-publish
4. http://jac.oxfordjournals.org/content/49/1/25.full
5. /products/kiwi-klenz