61–70 of 108 posts
I was scrolling on Weibo the other day and came across a news story about a killer fungus sweeping across the USA. Several deaths with 60% percent chance of death, they said. Well that was certainly news to me so I googled it. Nothing. Not a single shred of information. I wrote it off as shoddy Chinese journalism.
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Who is holding scientists back from doing this exactly?
Pharmaceutical research tends to focus on patentable molecules, not unpatentable plants.
Did anybody tried to apply blackseed and garlic light deep - fried coconut oil concoction? Just curious, sharing as it is our sub tropical Assam-Burma jungle traditional remedy for anything and everything fungal infection since time immemorial. Regards to all.
It is very unlikely that western doctors in a major hospital would use a traditional jungle remedy that has limited clinical support. I did a quick skim and the clinical support isn't very good. (none of this is to say it's not effective, just that it's unlikely western doctors would do this based on current clinical evidence)
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Pedant: All fungal infections are antibiotic-resistant, because antibiotics kill bacteria. Antifungal-resistant fungi have long been a problem for anyone who spends time in hospitals, though.
The term is ambiguous, but Merriam-Webster defines antibiotic as ... > a substance produced by or a semisynthetic (see semisynthetic sense 1) substance derived from a microorganism and able in dilute solution to inhibit or kill another microorganism Bacteria and fungi are microorganisms, so antibacterial and antifungal agents are all antibiotics. Edit: OK, upon reflection, some fungi are microorganisms. Others form f…
Anyhow, fungal infection is bad news, often systemic, hard to eliminate.
Did anybody tried to apply blackseed and garlic light deep - fried coconut oil concoction? Just curious, sharing as it is our sub tropical Assam-Burma jungle traditional remedy for anything and everything fungal infection since time immemorial. Regards to all.
I would personally be very interested in any resources you could link to with a recipe or similar. It likely was not used in this case. A doctor friend of mine once told me that American doctors try to err on the side of doing things they could defend in court if sued for malpractice. Remedies of this sort probably fail to meet that standard. I do personally know someone who served as "patient zero" in a clinical tri…
Is this becoming a serious problem? Or is this just getting more press attention suddenly? We've had outbreaks and near-hysteria of various sorts (HIV, SARS, swine flu etc). But those seem orders of magnitude easier to manage than this fungal infection. You don't need to tear down hospital rooms after an HIV patient spent time in it.
Frankly, it's hard to say. The year before it, we had super gonnerhea scare. Before that the hospital super bacteria scare. Before that, it was the ebola scare. Ever since I'd started paying attention to the news, we have a medical (bacteria/virus/fungi/etc) related scare every few months so I've just learn to ignore it mostly. It seems to come in waves. Now, we seem to be in a medical scare phase with fungi, measles…
https://today.oregonstate.edu/archives/2010/mar/fungi-can-ch...
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5095543/
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/10/061021115712.h...
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The cases are accelerating, and the information is actively being suppressed from the public (for what they see as good reasons, I guess). Something tells me that candida auris will change the way hospitals are built and maintained.
> the information is actively being suppressed from the public (for what they see as good reasons, I guess) It's about malpractice, I'm sure.
So ... let's suppose I care about slowing the development of drug-resistant fungi. As an individual, what can I do?
I basically buy into the claim that widespread overuse of antibiotic drugs in humans has caused an increase of multi-drug-resistant bacteria and I'm generally on board with limiting my own use of antibiotics (e.g. not asking a physician for an antibiotic prescription for a minor illness that is most likely viral). I'm not so sure I understand the literature on antibiotic use in livestock and I happily eat meat without thinking about what drugs the animals were given.
What should I do with respect to azole fungicides and my grocery-shopping decisions? I don't currently see strong evidence that buying food marked "organic" is better for health or the environment, but should this new-to-the-public-consciousness information about azole fungicide use in crops change my mind? Should I be trying to buy crops which were not made with the use of azole fungicides? What kind IS that -- are those fungicides on the permitted/proscribed list for things that carry the marketing label "organic" in the grocery store, and do certain farming practices end up using a lot more of this apparently irresponsible pesticide versus certain other practices?
I took a cursory look at this for about half an hour and could not figure it out, even after trying to understand primary-source literature from the past few years about C. auris and USDA rules. I also can't even tell if individual consumer-level actions make a difference, or if it's not worth trying.
Admittedly science reporting is really tough but it's a little surprising that nothing in the literature I could readily find clearly suggests what researchers think consumers should do differently (if anything).
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> the information is actively being suppressed from the public (for what they see as good reasons, I guess) It's about malpractice, I'm sure.
I don't think that's why the CDC suppressing the names of hospitals with infections.
From what I've seen, I gather that CDC is getting pressure from lobbyists for hospitals and nursing homes. Directly, and indirectly through the federal government and states.