Journalist and Author
Constant readers: I’m looking forward to having the breathing space to get back to in-depth blogging. Meanwhile, though, news is zipping by — so here’s a quick list of recent things worth reading. “Cows on Drugs” — a superb history of the 30-year-old fight to get unnecessary antibiotics out of food animals. Note, written by […]
With a cast of other people much more distinguished than me. See the program page, and access the audio when it’s posted, here.
Constant readers, I’ve been shamefully absent from the blog, but with reason, since I’ve been traveling promoting the book. There was a pretty interesting opportunity this week that I wanted to tell you about: I was asked to be part of two Congressional briefings in Washington, DC Wednesday, addressing the overuse of antibiotics in agriculture […]
Huge appreciation to the friendly folks at Eagle Eye Book Shop in Decatur, GA, who had me in to speak last night, and who also very kindly supplied books for the panel discussion at Danya International yesterday afternoon. Many thanks to all for your support!
Well, constant readers, it’s been an amazing two weeks. SUPERBUG was published, and ate my life. I’ve been on NPR’s Fresh Air, and on 21 (22?) other radio stations so far, with more radio, and TV, to come. I’m starting to plan the next phase of the book campaign. If you work at a hospital […]
Constant readers, huge news: SUPERBUG will be featured in a segment today on the NPR program Fresh Air with Terry Gross. Please tune in if you can! Fresh Air‘s broadcast times vary across the country, but you can listen online or via podcast. The schedule is here. UPDATE: Listen to the podcast here. Read the […]
Sara Austin, Susan Raihofer, Emily Loose, Maura O’Brien, Ali Pisano, Dominick Anfuso, Martha Levin, Elizabeth Stein. Andrew Dodds, David Ratner, Shirley Sandler, Chuck Monroe, Elise Bogdan. Penny Duckham, Deirdre Graham, Matt James, Drew Altman; Bruce Shapiro, Frank Ochberg, MD, Dorie Griggs. Barth Anderson, Frances Katz, Quinton and Jean Gregor, Anne Edwards, MD, Joanne Kenen, Howard […]
In advance of the Fresh Air interview today, their tweeter(s) asked for suggestions for a MRSA playlist! Here’s some of the suggestions: Fever, Peggy Lee Countin’ On A Miracle, Bruce Springsteen Ready or Not, the Delfonics (or as sampled by the Fugees) Time to Get Ill, Beastie Boys Hurts So Good, John Mellencamp (was he […]
Folks, it’s Sunday, and SUPERBUG will be officially released on Tuesday. Press copies have been landing at last. Readers who responded to my plea for pre-orders (because pre-orders are very important to how the publisher and the market behave subsequently about the book) have been telling me they’re getting emails saying the book is on […]
Because I’ve been so behind, there’s so much to cover! So let’s dive in: In today’s Archives of Surgery, researchers from Seattle’s Harborview Medical Center report that one simple addition to the routine of caring for trauma patients made a significant difference to the patients’ likelihood of acquiring a hospital-associated infection: bathing them once a […]
Constant readers: It’s two weeks to publication, and I’m starting to lose my grip on everything there is to do. (As you might be able to tell by my radio silence…) I’m very backed up on great research to tell you about. First, though, let me share some book news: EXCERPT: The first excerpt of […]
Hi, everyone. Apologies for dropping out of sight! As SUPERBUG’s publication draws closer (and it’s very close now), I keep finding new tasks that I have do to. Last week’s was to go to New York to shoot a video for the Simon & Schuster website — and while there, I got caught in Snowpocalypse, […]
Constant readers: There’s an important new paper that’s been out for a week that I haven’t gotten to you. I apologize; it’s been busy. (Let’s not even talk about the important paper that’s been out for two weeks. Maybe over the weekend…) We’ve talked for ages now about the potential dangers of unrestricted antibiotic use […]
This is a little outside our usual subject matter, but: What looks like a marvelous new documentary exploring environmental damage and human illness from pesticides and other farming chemicals is coming out in France, but needs assistance to get onto the international festival circuit. It’s called Nos enfants nous accuseront (Our Children Will Hold Us […]
The whole issue of how antibiotics get used in agriculture — as growth promoters, as prophylatic treatment to prevent spread of infection within a farm, or as true treatment — is intensely controversial. For a sense of how farmers feel embattled, read the comments to this entry at FairFoodFight on whether there is a distinction […]
It’s been a few days since the rollout of the White House’s proposed 2011 budget request, time enough for people to dig deep into the minutiae and figure out what that massive document really says. The Infectious Diseases Society of America has done the drilling for the health and infectious disease line items, and I’m […]
There are two new reports out regarding new findings of “pig MRSA” ST398 (about which we have talked a lot; archive of posts here.) First, researchers from the Complejo Hospitalario Universitario de Vigo and Complejo Hospitalario de Pontevedra, both in Pontevedra in northwest Spain, report that they have identified that country’s first human cases of […]
With the H1N1 pandemic trending down, it may seem that the question of how much bacterial co-infection affects the outcome of flu is less important than it was. But though the pandemic is subsiding — for ever, for this season, or just until a third wave, who can say — researchers are just now getting […]
I have a story tonight at CIDRAP about a paper published this evening in the journal Science. To respect fair use and make sure my colleagues get clicks, I just quote the story here — but then I want to talk about why I think it’s such an important study. A multi-national team of […]
As promised, lots to catch up on — so here’s a quick round-up of some great reading that I have been stashing and that you may have missed in the past few weeks. BBC News: Disinfectants may train bacteria to resist antibiotics The BBC Health page (bookmark it!) translates a paper from the journal Microbiology […]