Journalist and Author
Serious drug-resistant infections in children are rising across the United States.
This will be a quick post, because I caught up to this late (travel) and its news value will be out of date in a few hours: If you are concerned with how the US Food and Drug Administration regulates the way antibiotics are given to meat animals raised in the United States, then you […]
In an analysis of several sets of hospital data, the CDC found that more than 37 percent of prescriptions written in hospitals involved some sort of error or poor practice, increasing the risk of serious infections or antibiotic resistance.
It’s been more than a year since the first-ever clinical trial of fecal transplants demonstrated that the low-tech process works really well for people suffering from various forms of diarrhea. So why hasn’t the FDA approved it yet?
As a novel strain of avian influenza rapidly spreads through China, scientists consider the dangers posed by the country’s large animal farms and agricultural practices.
China is reporting a steady flow of H7N9 cases — last year’s strain of deadly avian influenza. Wired Science blogger Maryn McKenna has the round-up.
An exhaustive review of FDA documents reveals that the agency has tried, and failed, to regulate the safe use of farm antibiotics for at least a decade.
In the long fight over antibiotic use in agriculture, one of the most contentious points is whether the resistant bacteria that inevitably arise can move off the farm to affect humans. Most of the illnesses that have been associated with farm antibiotic use — resistant foodborne illness, for example — occur so far from farms that opponents of antibiotic control find them easy to dismiss.
Back in 2011, I was researching a story about the under-appreciated toll of foodborne illness. Through social media, I met Lisa Bonchek Adams, a mom of three in Connecticut who had suffered an extended, bad bout with antibiotic-resistant Campylobacter. She was a great interview — thoughtful, funny, frank — and she had an extraordinary story: […]
Happy new year, constant readers. Here’s the most urgent thing I have to say today: Stop reading and go set your DVRs for 8pm ET tonight. The fantastic The Poisoner’s Handbook, written by Wired colleague and dear friend Deborah Blum, has been adapted by PBS and airs tonight on The American Experience. It’s going to […]
In my first take on the news of the FDA finalizing its request to agriculture to stop using growth-promoter antibiotics, I promised to come back for a more thoughtful reaction. And then this happened, and this happened, and the holidays happened, and, well, it’s been a busy few weeks. So, finally getting back to it: […]
Two important, linked publications are out today, both carrying the same message: The way we raise poultry in this country is creating an under-appreciated health hazard, and the government structures we depend upon to detect that hazard and protect us from it are failing us. The two pubs are: A long piece that will be […]
More news today out of the Food and Drug Administration — so while I’m still writing my follow-up to last week’s news on growth promoters, I want to toss this up first. The latest: The FDA has announced that it is formally reconsidering “antibacterial” soaps and other personal-care products, charging that the antibacterial ingredients confer no benefit over regular soap and water while carrying extra risks.
This morning, the US Food and Drug Administration dropped some long-awaited-but-still-big news regarding the use of antibiotics in meat production. Tl;dr: The FDA asked (but did not compel) the livestock industry to stop using the micro-dose “growth promoter” antibiotics that are widely believed to contribute to increase in antibiotic resistant bacteria in animals, food and […]
This year, the number of measles cases in the U.S. has tripled. Why? Not surprisingly, the spike is due to vaccine refusals, both in the U.S. and abroad.
For the first time, MRSA has been found in U.K. turkeys — just in time for Christmas. But what’s also alarming is how badly the discovery was reported to the public.
This week, health authorities in New Zealand announced that the tightly quarantined island nation — the only place I’ve ever been where you get x-rayed on the way into the country as well as leaving it — has experienced its first case, and first death, from a strain of totally drug-resistant bacteria. From the New […]
In editorials, three newspapers recently challenged the way antibiotics are used on farms and asked why we can’t do better — a sign that public opinion may be turning against ag overuse of antibiotics for real.
I mean this post to address the convulsions in the science-writing community that arose this past week in the wake of the problems faced by writer Danielle N. Lee, PhD regarding her Scientific American blog. That situation was resolved to good effect and quickly; if you’d like to catch up on that, the posts are […]
We’re now on the 16th day of the federal shutdown. As I write, the Senate has announced a deal to avoid a debt default and open the government. It remains to be seen whether that will work, or how fast. Yesterday, on Day 15, I had a long conversation with Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about what this shutdown has meant for his agency, its employees, and the health of Americans, and the world.