This article describes how, by overuse of antibiotics and antibacterial products, what we have done is to force the microbes to develop resistance to them.
All of this was not just foreseeable, but inevitable. If we didn't have so many scientific illiterates in this country, we might have been able to slow the rise of the superbugs. If the drug marketeers weren't so greedy, maybe we would have delayed the rise of the superbugs.
Maybe if we didn't have so many religious zealots in this country, such as the idiots who run around with "the Bible said it, I believe it, end of discussion" bumperstickers, we might have a population with the knowledge to comprehend such matters. For you cannot understand the process of natural selection without studying evolution.
So. You can either have some understanding of how evolution works and that knowledge would give you the tools to understand what is going on. Or you can believe in creation and in some Supernatural Sky-Fucker and then you have to ask yourself why the Supernatural Sky-Fucker
is creating the superbugs.
(Don't bother, I'll tell you: You're going to blame the superbugs on lesbian judges. Do the world a favor: Go hide in a cave and screech at fire.)
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Furthermore, we help the evolution of these bugs by allowing people to be unhealthy (due to lack of health care), but not allowing them to die (if they're in danger of dying, the hospital emergency room gives them just enough care to keep them alive). Unhealthy hosts are a perfect breeding ground for nasty bugs. Universal health care is necessary not just because it's ethically correct, but also because the coming pandemic caused by having this reservoir of unhealthy hosts in our environment will cross all socio-economic boundaries and kill millions regardless of how much insurance they have.
- Badtux the Health Penguin
And then various idiots help the bugs along by taking half of a course of antibiotics and then stopping because "I feel fine".
Okay, I was warned of this happening back in 1993-ish by a creationist with a degree in biology. You don't have to believe lock-stock-and barrel in evolution to grok mutations and natural selection.
Then again, I might be a minority on that matter when it comes to Christian beliefs.
Anyway, what I came here to say is that I just saw the local news on this. This seems to be popping up in local schools in my area (West Michigan) and this morning my girlfriend was chatting with her sister (in Georgia) and the topic came up.
Her sister is laying some of the blame on the Iraq war on this one. She's a West Point grad, a vet, and so is her husband.
Basically, she's saying that standard Army procedure when you get sent to the hospital is to nail you with heavy levels of antibiotics. If that doesn't clear it up, they ship you back to the US pronto. I'm not sure if she heard this somewhere, or its her own conjecture, or what, but it seems like plausible explanation.
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