Sunday, June 5, 2011

Pestilences: E. Coli and MRSA

One of the devil's bargains of modern society is the danger of evolutionarily-savvy microbes finding new ways to get us. The current outbreak of virulent, kidney-ravaging E. Coli in Europe show that flu virus ism't the only thing that can mutate and evolve and get more nasty. The ongoing struggle with methycilline-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), now found in cow's milk, also shows that bugs won't take antibiotics lying down, and they will evolve their way around them.

What does this mean for current humanity? Just that there are always more ways to get sick and die. The concern is that the current population boom might get decimated (in the decimal sense) by something that we as yet have no way medicinally to handle. We know the watchdogs are watching, but flu or tuberculosis or staph might still find a way to control our populative excess, no matter how much we try.

German hospitals 'may run out of beds' under pressure from E.coli outbreak

New MRSA Strain Found In Dairy Cattle and Humans

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