An Unhealthy Resistance

A growing number of powerful, drug-resistant bacteria is causing despair among medical experts - and these pathogens are spreading fast.

Klebsiella pneumoniae, part of a class of bacteria called gram-negative, infected 34 patients in an intensive care unit at Tisch Hospital in New York in 2003, killing nearly half. The bacteria, once entering the bloodstream, can spread to every organ in the body. Infectious-disease experts have found Klebsiella virtually untreatable, and difficult to contain.

The most well-known of the "superbugs," the methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, can cause wound infections after surgery, pneumonia, and even such extreme infections as bacterial meningitis. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention counted 19,000 deaths and 105,000 infections from MRSA in 2006. But unlike the gram-negative bacteria, MRSA can be treated with a number of new antibiotics coming onto the market.

Dr. Jerome Groopman wrote about “superbugs” for The New Yorker. He's the Recanati Professor at Harvard, and his book "How Doctors Think" is out now in paperback. You can read Dr. Groopman's article by clicking here.

(Photo by Sparky)