Dear All, As those of us who have had the privilege of standing at the bedside and delivering care know first hand, the magical power of a safe and effective antimicrobial agent is little short of magic. Sometimes, the (nearly) dead can get up and walk! With that idea in mind, I was just blown
Dear All, Well, I think we can all agree that being grounded and shut away by COVID-19 is not exactly what any of us had in mind this spring! I certainly miss seeing everyone at the various events and I hope you are all keeping safe. But, staying home does offer a bit of time
Dear All: There’s a very comprehensive review of the polymyxins by Poirel, Jayol, and Nordmann just out in Clin Micro Reviews (https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/CMR.00064-16). If you’re a fan of good quality graphics as way to tell the story of AMR, their Figure 4 is worth capturing! Ditto their Figure 5 of outbreaks of colistin-resistant, carbapenemase-producing K. pneumoniae.
Dear All: I wrote a few weeks ago about the Stopping Superbugs series from PBS Newshour. PBS has since then added some superb new materials: A marvelous 10-minute video story on agricultural use of antibiotics A column on Maryn McKenna’s upcoming Big Chicken book (scheduled for release on 12 Sep) A column on the never-ending debate about taking the entire course of antibiotics These build on
Dear All, I previously wrote (link) about the first of Jason Gale‘s 4-part podcast series on AMR. The whole series is now out and definitely worth your time. Each podcast is about 30 minutes long … please set aside a bit of time to listen to all four! Here they are: #1: In a detailed look at
Dear All: Great stuff to read, watch, and share! First, there is an excellent new BBC documentary entitled The Truth About Antibiotics. In it, Angela Rippon provides a thorough tour at the non-scientist level of the origins of antibiotics, the devastating consequences of not having an effective choice, the role of diagnostics, and the challenges of
Dear All, Clear analyses by our colleagues in the science-focused media are invaluable ways to educate both ourselves and others: we learn new viewpoints while our non-technical friends and colleagues learn what keeps us up at night. On this note, we have two recently released 30-minute podcasts that are very much worth hearing and sharing.
Dear All: Frontline will today broadcast an updated version of the excellent Hunting the Nightmare Bacteria show that first broadcast in 2013. Here’s the link to the announcement and here is the short description of this 1-h program: “Described by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as “nightmare bacteria,” there are now predictions that drug-resistant superbugs will kill more