Already a serious issue in hospitals, antibiotic-resistant bugs like Acinetobacter baumannii are becoming a big problem for the military medical system. It sickens me to know we are saving people on the battlefield only to have them die after the fact from an infection.
Soldiers wounded in Vietnam were six weeks of transit time away from US hospitals, and one out of every four of them died. By contrast, a soldier’s odds of surviving battle injuries in Iraq are nine out of 10. Unfortunately, this remarkable advance in battlefield logistics has also resulted in an increase in the number of traumatically injured patients who are particularly susceptible to infections during their recovery.
Since Operation Iraqi Freedom began in 2003, more than 700 US soldiers have been infected or colonized with Acinetobacter baumannii. A significant number of additional cases have been found in the Canadian and British armed forces, and among wounded Iraqi civilians. The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology has recorded seven deaths caused by the bacteria in US hospitals along the evacuation chain.
This problem is caused by our dependency on antibiotics from our farms to our living rooms. Countries such as Canada have been researching the use of Phages to attach antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
While the mere mention of multiple antibiotic-resistant superbugs may strike doctors and patients with dread, they represent the opportunity to fulfill the raison d’être for the right bacteriophage. Superbugs’ presence excites the reproductive machinery of the phage into action. In stealth, moon-lander fashion, the phage commandeers the reproductive system of superbug. In a short time (30 minutes) the superbug bursts open releasing more than 200 copies of phage, each looking for a superbug to conquer.
While a superbug multiplies by dividing in two, the phage produces about 200 offspring for every superbug killed; clearly with those odds the superbug becomes the victim.
Maybe now that this is becoming a defense issue, the government will address the rampant excessive antibiotic use that is behind the development of these superbugs.
The other problem is that developing af new antibiotic does not pay as well for the drugt companies as developing a treatment (if you cure a disease there are no follow on sales) for the latest headline grabbing syndrome or disease.
I believe that the problem with phages is that you need to find one that works against this particular bacteria. As far as I know phages occur naturally in nature and there is no way to manuifacture or target a phage for a particular bacteria.
While this has historically been the case, we are much better off now than we used to be. Almost twice as many people died during the American Civil War from disease than died from direct combat.
Used to be the biggest infection threat to the military was STDs, many of which were also antibiotic-resistant. Now we fight our wars in the predominantly Muslim Southwest Asia as opposed to the sex trade nations of Southeast Asia. We moved away from one source of infection only to be threatened by another.
Maybe the army can kill the bacteria by rubbing it with depleted-uranium bullets
Thanks for the link.
Yes, JT, but my article in Wired makes clear that Acinetobacter baumannii did not come from the environment, “Muslim” or otherwise.
Steve, if you’re following this, I’d be interested in seeing your reaction to the bacteriophage approach to treating superbug infections. Did you run across that while researching your Wired article?
Just a short note – the 1918 flu pandemic began in ships full of sick troops going to and from Europe…
Antibiotic resistance is a HUGE problem that shouldn’t be underestimated. We’re nearing a point where many pathogenic bacteria survive most antibiotics, and once when the final barrier is crossed in the next few years, we’ll be in the same conditions as in the pre-antibiotics era – basically a rise in infant mortality and in many diseases we nowadays consider curable. This may even lead to a decrease in total world population on the longer term.
TJ, yes I did run across phage therapy — it’s fascinating, and I hope to learn more about it.
Miguel, you’re so right. I wrote a little sidebar to this article which addresses precisely that problem:
Requiem for the Magic Bullets
Thanks for the comments, Steve. Glad you liked us picking this up.
I’m personally a fan of Phage research, the same drives that push bacteria to be more resistant push phages to be more targeted.
#8, Even though we usually don’t like to accept it, nature has a way of keeping itself in balance, and disease and premature death play a part in it.
Yep…
I have to agree with #11 — our species smugness, arrogance, misguided and incorrect beliefs that we’re somehow superior to everything in reality — these are going to be our undoing.
Good.
Haven’t war always been a major source of disease spread going back into ancient history?
I think many people argue that WWI was what spread the great Spanish flu pandemic of that same era, killing far more people than the war itself. Far more, I think.