Read Online The Killers Within The Deadly Rise Of DrugResistant Bacteria Michael Shnayerson Mark J Plotkin 9780316735667 Books

Product details Paperback 336 pages Publisher Back Bay Books; Reprint edition (September 2, 2003) Language English ISBN-10 0316735663

The Killers Within The Deadly Rise Of DrugResistant Bacteria Michael Shnayerson Mark J Plotkin 9780316735667 Books Reviews

• I never excelled in microbiology so the narrative lost me at times. It was, however, a good book with scary true stories. Stays in my library between Germs and The Hot Zone.
• Needed this book for class and it wasn't hardly used. No rips or tears. Good quality book for a great price.
• Diseases and human evolution study on collages to understand and develop of the function that stud dens need in today class
• A well researched informative book. Should be required reading for all college students who want to enter the medical / research field.
• I am writing this review, for a class assignment, on The Killers Within (The Deadly Rise of Drug-Resistant Bacteria) by Michael Shnayerson and Mark J. Plotkin. Throughout the book it informs you of the antibiotic resistant bacteria that have been popping up more and more over the years. There are different stories told within the book about different individuals who encounter these bacteria, how they may have contracted it and how they were treated (some weren’t as lucky as others though). How the over use antibiotics can cause more resistance, as those cell walls are able to build up and thicken their walls. If they are misused (for example, giving antibiotics to someone who doesn’t necessarily need them or how they are being used) is not good either. How these infections/bacteria can also harm even the healthy, not just the young or old or the ones who are already ill/weak immune systems.
  Scientists test animal to human transmission of certain diseases and their resistance. Growth promoters were assumed to cause some of the problems when humans ate those animals that had growth promoters in them. Animals can transfer diseases to humans when they ate or were around those animals. But it wasn’t just those who ate the infected meat or drank milk from the infected animals, somehow the bacteria was spreading by touch or being around those who were sick.
  The book also goes in-depth about bacteriophages; what it is, how it came about, mentioned a few of the individual’s stories that were involved with this idea, difficulties and how well it worked. They told a story about a gentleman that ended up with a bad staph infection on his ankle for a previous injury. None of the antibiotics seemed to work, so he ended up going to Tbilisi, where they did bacteriophage research. After doing some treatments on him with bacteriophages, his infection was cured. How animals were getting treated with the same treatment, and were getting cured of their problems. Years later the idea of phages came back in a way, and were being studied in the United States- they wanted to turn phages presumably from human sewage into a product that the FDA could approve.
  Science has gotten better, but many things can get in the way of trying to come up with cures or treatments (certain companies, funding, etc.) or maybe even trying to control how people can get treated. I think no matter what they come up with, bacteria will still find its way to make itself resistant; they are a smart little thing. If they do come up with a magical drug, will that also become resistant? And then make it even worse? Then who knows maybe a huge epidemic could happen that could wipe out millions of people.
  The Killers Within has me intrigued and wanting to know more about these antibiotic resist bacteria. It worries me how this is happening and how there might not be much doctors can do to stop this. Also, how quickly some can become infected and how hospitals can carry many of these bacteria’s as well. This book made me realize how concerning this issue is and makes me question medicine and vaccines. If we keep using all these drugs, medicines, and antibiotics now, in the future will we be able to cure things or will everything become resistant. It honestly kind of scares me. I think many people would appreciate reading this book and to become more aware of what is out there. If they read this book, I really think it would open people’s minds and make them a lot more concerned in washing their hands, cleaning surface areas, and making sure they and others are staying healthy among everything else they could do to not get sick.
  Many of us have family, friends, or pets that we all love and when we see them hurt, upset, or sick, we try to make them feel better and do whatever we can to make things right. Us not giving up on them, seems a lot like how it is with certain scientist not giving up on trying to figure out what can make these ugly bacteria disappear… for a while.
• This book is so good it's downright scary! I'll try not to repeat too much what's in the other good reviews here on , but it'll be hard.
  
  The book's subtitle is "The deadly rise of drug-resistant bacteria". I think the most salient word there is "rise". Now, antibiotics were an invention of the 20th century, and microbiologists said right from the beginning that the bugs would eventually evolve resistance (Fleming himself included, as documented in the book). But -- a very big BUT -- the rate is accelerating in recent years. That is, the rate of the number of bugs that are developing resistance to an ever-greater number of drugs, and the rates of resistant infections both within the hospitals and -- most worrisome -- the rates outside the hospitals.
  
  Shnayerson and Plotkin tell the story of resistant bacteria from many points of view the researcher studying the organisms and the spreading infections, the public health workers, the drug industries, and the medical professionals who treat the sick. They go into detail on the science of bacteriology characteristics of the various microorganisms, how they evolve and reproduce, the molecular mechanisms they employ to create resistance and confer resistance to their offspring, what strategies bacteria employ to thwart the immune system and safely secure access to nutrients, and how the various antibiotic compounds kill or suppress bacteria. The narrative is presented in both descriptive and anecdotal storytelling form, which makes for a pleasant and easily digestible reading experience.
  
  They also relate the social and economic factors that contribute, indeed create, the conditions necessary for the rise of resistant bacteria. Most important of these is the use of "sub-theraputic" doses of antibiotics in the meat industry. This made possible the modern "factory farm" business.
  
  The drug industry is held responsible for the dearth of newly developed antibiotics. From the book, get this "Why had no new TB drigs come along in more than thirty years? Because...TB was viewed as a poor man's disease and big pharmaceutical companies had no wish to spend half a billion dollars developing a drug that had no lucrative market. Worse, Farmer claimed, more than one drug company's executives all but pleaded with him not even to try their new wide-spectrum antibiotic on TB. If it worked, the company would be pressured by international agencies -- and mavericks like Farmer himself -- to distribute the drug to the poor at wholesale cost or no charge...the bottom-line choice was clear return on investment from producing an antibiotic that might be used by a patient for less than a week versus return from a drug for a chronic condition that a patient might take daily for fifty years." Besides drugs for chronic conditions, I might add lifestyle drugs, which their corporate propaganda makes everyone believe they need. You know, those ads on TV for Lipitor, Prozac, Viagra, etc. etc. Why, they even invent diseases to push their drugs. Nobody try to tell me so-called "Restless Leg Syndrome" is for real! Now how's that for capitalism?
  
  There is far more at stake here than the possibility of becoming ill or even dying because of a resistant infection. Shnayerson and Plotkin make the point that if some truly virulent organism gains immunity from all known antibiotics, it could well spell the end of humanity as a species. They specifically mention the possibility of resistant tuberculosis, what some call without understatement "Ebola with wings".
  
  The book is replete with astonishing facts. For instance, one-fifth of the weight of a human body is comprised of bacteria! It also contains many factoids that would not have readily occurred to me, such as that if a truckload of lettuce contains just one infected crate, during a hundreds-miles long truck journey that one crate dripping tainted water over all the other crates will spread the contagion to potentially scores of victims. Another fact easy to overlook is that each of us are carrying around chronic infections, but our immune systems keep the organisms in check. As one wag once said animal bodies are germ condominiums! The book makes clear with several anecdotal patient stories that these latent bacterial infestations are just lying in wait to become infectious whenever your immune function becomes suppressed. Perhaps you've heard it's useless to take antibiotics for a viral infection. Well, I remember once I had the flu (I believe), and it got so bad, I crawled to the bathroom and popped some old leftover AB pills. I was desperate -- even if it could only work by the placebo effect. And guess what -- I got better right away. I think my immune system was working overtime fighting the flu virus, and some latent bacteria went opportunistically infectious. So much for the conventional wisdom!
  
  There is a chapter just on the treatment of bacterial infections with bacteriophages -- viruses that attack bacteria. This is a treatment considered to be outside the mainstream by the medical establishment, but there have been documented successful treatments. It is very difficult to employ, and there is only one place in the world where this brand of medicine is practiced -- in Georgia, of all places (that is, the NATION of Georgia in the Caucuses, not in the USA. You know, home of good 'ol Joe Stalin!)
  
  The authors describe bacteria with an anthropomorphic, almost admiring perspective. Their behaviors are likened to those of a thinking, intelligent, cunning opponent. Permit me to quote at length, "Levins began with a question that Western science never considered. What did the bugs want? Answer to get a good meal, avoid getting killed, and have an exit strategy to reach the next human host, preferably reproducing as they did. These three goals were often in conflict with one another, so the bugs had to juggle. The bloodstream was the best place to get a meal, rich with nutrients and proteins. But it was also the most dangerous place in the body for a bug to be, because there were macrophages and other elements of the immune system stood ready to kill it. So a bug might escape to the central nervous system good meal, relatively safe, but no exit. Failing that, a bug might migrate to the skin. Now it had an easy exit to the next host and was relatively safe, given the scant circulation of the immune system to the skin. But the grazing was poor. Given that none of these options was perfect, a bug tried to change the odds. It might try to make the blood safe, either by destroying the host's immune system or by becoming invisible to it. As it began to wreak havoc, a bug had to decide whether to reproduce there or leave first and resproduce later."
  
  The book has several other passages akin to this, describing how the bugs strategize and adapt to human behaviors (especially sexual behaviors) and environmental selection pressures (such as antibiotics, hygenic procedures, and disinfectants). For a bacterium, it all comes down to raw survival, like any other beast in the wild. I find this fascinating they are just single-cell plants, after all!
  
  This book makes me wonder why the rise of resistant bacteria has accelerated so much in recent years. Shnayerson and Plotkin do not state explicitly, but the evidence that they present builds up to a case laying the blame on the accelerated rate of turbo-capitalism since the global economy began spreading (itself like a contagion) in the 1990s. We now produce our food on mega-farms operated by mega-corporations. I add, just a very few mega-farms, so that an epidemic that establishes itself in one place is distributed with the product to victims all across the nation and even the globe. (I further add that this long-distant transport is the reason for the preservatives with which so many foods are laden) More of our foods are imported from distant countries with lax or non-existent safety and environmental standards, and the reigning "free trade" paradigm prohibits the imposition of international regulations because that would "level the playing field" for the globo-corps. And then, of course, there is Big Pharma, but I have already spoken of them. Their motives are plain enough.
  
  All this in the name of profit.
  
  If you want a really good scare, and a good story to boot, read the book.