Serious Resistant Infections Increasingly Found in Children

By Maryn / March 24, 2014

Serious drug-resistant infections in children are rising across the United States.

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The Public Comment Period on an FDA Farm-Antibiotics Rule Closes Tonight

By Maryn / March 12, 2014

This will be a quick post, because I caught up to this late (travel) and its news value will be out of date in a few hours: If you are concerned with how the US Food and Drug Administration regulates the way antibiotics are given to meat animals raised in the United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 […]

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CDC: Some Hospitals Need Assistance Using Antibiotics Properly (And the New Federal Budget May Help)

By Maryn / March 4, 2014

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.

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Fecal Transplants: Treat Them Like Tissue, Not Like Drugs

By Maryn / February 23, 2014

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?

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From Bird Flu to Big Farms: The Rise of China's Agriculture

By Maryn / February 21, 2014

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.

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H7N9 Flu, Year Two: What Is Going On?

By Maryn / February 10, 2014

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.

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Report: FDA Documents Show Decade of Unsuccessful Attempts to Control Farm Antibiotics

By Maryn / January 28, 2014

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.

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Almost Three Times the Risk of Carrying MRSA from Living Near a Mega-Farm

By Maryn / January 22, 2014

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.

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Former New York Times Editor, Wife Publicly Tag-Team Criticism of Cancer Patient. Ugh.

By Maryn / January 13, 2014

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: […]

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Can Antibiotics User Fees Force Down Drug Mis-Use and Overuse?

By Maryn / January 7, 2014

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 […]

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