I Need a Cloaking Device – Super Bugs
I’ve been toying with several ideas for my début entry. Last week I settled on super bugs. I came down with strep throat on Tuesday and had a doctor confirm it for me Thursday. The irony is not lost on me. Super bugs are antibiotic resistant bacteria. Several common super bugs include Staph aureus, GAS (Group A Streptococcus,) Clostridium difficile, E. coli, and Salmonella. If I was a lone white blood cell, I’d hate to meet any of these in a dark artery.
These microorganisms mutate and in doing so survive the antimicrobials. The mutation is then passed along to offspring in an elegant evolution that leaves microbiologists and other scientists fighting to keep up. Staph infections are an excellent case study when it comes to this. Each time a strain has been discovered to resist a particular antibiotic, a new antibiotic has been developed to combat the strain. The strain then evolves and becomes resistant to the new antibiotic. Staphylococcus aureus was proven resistant in 1947 to penicillin and then treated with methicillin. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) was first documented in 1961. Not only is it resistant to methicillin but also penicillin, tetracycline, and erythromycin. A treatment course of vancomycin became the norm. The staphylococcus aureus developed a strain to resist this course of treatment by the late 1990s. This timeline appears in detail in the Wikipedia entry linked above.
Antibiotics are not the only method employed to fight staphylococcus aureus. Hand washing and sanitizing campaigns have been publicized and are especially visible at hospitals where these infections are most prevalent. Touch surfaces are places that the public handles en mass such as railings and door knobs.
The antimicrobial qualities of copper alloys are part of the reason so many of the surfaces are made out of brass or bronze. There is also a long history of utilizing silver in this capacity that dates back to ancient Egyptians. Hospitals have been using silver-based coatings in vents and on surfaces to kill bacteria and fungus. One such coating is produced by AgION Technologies, Inc. They also add it to athletic products, business supplies, and door knobs. Biochemists from the University of Florida designed a microbicidal coating that adheres to bandages, wound dressings, socks, hospital gowns, and beddings.
Bathing trauma patients daily using cloths containing the antiseptic chlorhexidine may be associated with a decreased rate of colonization and infection by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and other difficult-to-treat bacteria , according to a report in the March issue of Archives of Surgery.
- “Antiseptic Cloths Associated With Reduced Rate of Treatment-Resistant Bacteria in the Trauma Center.” ScienceDaily 17 March 2010.
Ok so I’ve talked a bit about super bugs, their evolution, and some of the advances in combating the microorganisms. How do super bugs fit in science fiction? In the scope of my reading, I find they most often surface as a catalyst. The super bugs bring about a biological apocalypse. Stephen King’s The Stand is a great example of this. “Project Blue” was a biological weapon, a super flu virus that killed over 99% of the population. What about the strain of bacteria that causes humans to exhibit symptoms of vampirism in Richard Matheson’s I am Legend? The novel is considered influential in starting the zombie genre; bacterial and viral strains are often indicated as the cause for zombie outbreaks. It even runs in reverse, the Martian invasion was halted in H.G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds by terrestrial pathogenic bacteria. On television the BBC is running the second season of Survivors. A virulent form of influenza, “The European Flu,” is cast as the killer of millions. However TimesOnline said that culprit might not fly but instead suggests a stronger stand-in such as H5N1; H1N1 had not made it’s appearance by the time the article was published discussing season one.
In addition to those kinds of stories, I’d like to see more about pandemic prevention thanks to antimicrobial clothing. Currently we have fabric softener that releases a scent throughout the day. Couldn’t we have clothing that could provide a barrier from super bugs as part of our every day wardrobe? I’d love to see how epidemics can’t spread to towns that are predominantly constructed using materials that are environmentally conscious and consist of microbicidal materials. Some plastics like this are already being used in daycare as well as many gyms.
Or to go in a different direction, consider the places in which super bugs might be breeding, evolving in the wild such as waste water treatment plants. If not waste treatment, how about a space flight for a perfect breeding ground?
*shudder* Widespread use of antimicrobials is a really bad idea, as it leads to the evolution of resistant bacteria. Triclosan, the antimicrobial found in hand soap, dish soap, and pretty much everywhere, is known to promote antibiotic resistance even though that isn’t it’s main mode of action.
The next big plague isn’t going to come from traditionally “icky” places like waste water treatment plants, but from the ostensibly clean places that are using antimicrobials on everything.
Although many of these chemicals do make it into the waste water, and out into the environment – we could be breeding superbugs everywhere.
This is one of my pet rants: if you’re given antibiotics take the full course, don’t ask for antibiotics for viruses, and don’t use household products with persistent antimicrobials like triclosan!
Antimicrobials are problematic, to be sure. Hospitals in Norway have been fighting MRSA – and winning – by locking up their antibiotics. Which is pretty exciting when you think about it. The best way to fight a superbug is to…stop escalating the fight. Brilliant.
There’s another question to ask ourselves, as well: what happens to us when we sterilize our environments too much? After all, our immune systems need to face minor attacks in order to prepare for worse infections. Plus, there’s growing evidence that the rise of allergies and other autoimmune problems is tied to living ‘too clean’. As a child, I wasn’t even allowed to keep pet fish in the house because animals are such germ magnets. But after my son was born, our doctor was glad to hear we had a couple of indoor cats because babies who grow up with housecats tend to develop fewer allergies in the long term.
Penicillin has saved millions of lives. And yet in Norway, it’s practically a controlled substance because it eventually contributes to the evolution of superbugs like MRSA.
Companion animals make our homes less sanitary, and can sometimes transmit parasites and even flesh-eating bacteria to us. But we’re still better off with critters and their crud than we are without them.
The complexity and interconnectedness of life is amazing.
BTW, I linked to my article on my LiveJournal account. Phiala, your comment was met with great approval. Thank you so much.
I saw a BBC production of Body Wars years and years ago that presented a cold from the moment it enters your body until it is finally expelled. I wish I could find a link to it, because it was AMAZING! And the whole time I watched it, I felt like I was watching an adventure story. The invading force comes in, sets up defenses. The rebels ambush it with all sorts of weapons to weaken it, while a special force goes off into the body to find the ONE t-cell that will vanquish it.
Very cool.
Not rebels, but resistance fighters — after all, they’re defending their home territory. And they will also need B cells to mount an effective defense, although the cold virus mutates too fast for long-lasting immunity.
Not bad, I liked it.
I love how a little scientific knowledge spurs the “what if” of our imagination. “What if” is also what spurs scientific investigation, I guess. And maybe every story we write. I bet someone reading your above post will come up with a story!
The world of microbes certainly is a fertile source for science fiction inspiration. That story about Salmonella turning into a super bug during spaceflight made me think of The Andromeda Strain–although the bug in that story was an extraterrestrial one.
Hope your strep throat is better soon!
Antibiotic-resistant bugs are **definitely** food for sf. I was reading recently about how antibiotic-resistant bugs can hurt us in ways we (or at least I) hadn’t even thought of. For example: if there are enough things like MRSA and c. difficile around in hospitals, then surgeries cease to be viable treatment options, because the risk of picking up a superbug outweighs the benefits of the surgery. I guess we’re not there yet, but the risk is seriously there. The article I was reading was saying we risk losing things like hip replacements and open heart surgeries. Definitely sf fuel.
Thanks for reading and commenting, you guys. I was busy taking my Amoxicillin as prescribed this weekend.
You do raise good points. I do think that we are playing a part in the superbug evolution by utilizing antibiotics to such a high level. I also think that we are causing our own immune systems to weaken their defenses. I don’t think that this is so on an individual basis but perhaps as a trend.
My son has a low immune system. This topic is near and dear to my heart. I just want to explore the angles of it. I also want to look how we are responsible for the spread of such germs and what can be done in terms of prevention. That is why treated surfaces and textiles applealed to me.
That Body Wars episode sounds cool. I grew up watching Nova on PBS.
I hope that someone reading this was inspired to write. I’ve read other entries here that have inspired stories in me.
For example: if there are enough things like MRSA and c. difficile around in hospitals, then surgeries cease to be viable treatment options, because the risk of picking up a superbug outweighs the benefits of the surgery. – That is very interesting. If you have a link to that article, I’d love to read it. Thank you!
And for the person that asked, my throat is still tender. When I first got back to work, I had to talk. I’ve been avoiding that as much as I could. It hurts. I am now in my cubicle playing the quiet game.
“It even runs in reverse, the Martian invasion was halted in H.G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds by terrestrial pathogenic bacteria.”
Yes, I noticed the connection too and used an H. G. Wells quote in a policy-maker antibiotic resistance piece of promo for the Institute of Biology and Affiliated Societies some years ago.
A pdf of the brochure — which also has an SFnalish title ‘Pharmageddon Now’ can be found at science-com.concatenation.org/archive/pharmageddon-now-full.pdf.
I like the Toy Story movies, awesome animation.
Any conceivable interstellar journey will take a millennium or so–plenty of time for an incurable disease to evolve. A lot can go wrong in a thousand years.
The initial show of the new series, broadcast on Saturday, featured a kissogram, a naked Doctor along with a “sexed up” Tardis.Throughout the unique 65-minute episode, The Eleventh Hour, in which Physician Who had 20 minutes to save Earth from aliens known as the Atraxi, his new companion, Amy Pond, was revealed as a kissogram dressed in a skimpy policeman’s outfit, complete with mini-skirt and handcuffs. In 1 scene, Amy, played by the actress Karen Gillan, told the Dr that her kissogram repertoire also included nuns and nurses’ outfits. Discover out much more at Sci Fi Fan.