Antibiotics

DELTA, Pa. -- Mark and Diane Thomas were accustomed to farm life when they moved from Maryland into a charming 1830s log home on 19 acres. But in the two years since then - as Diane suffered headaches and a persistent skin infection and her husband and two children struggled with diarrhea and other digestive problems - they began to suspect that their health problems were caused by the hog farm next door. And they grew further alarmed when the farm announced plans this year to expand from 450 pigs to 4,400.

The widespread use of standard antibiotics to treat sinus infections does not help cure patients and may harm them by increasing their resistance to the drugs, according to a new study published today. The researchers found that the percentage of patients who got well in 10 days was about the same whether they took an antibiotic or a placebo. "With a little bit of patience, the body will usually heal itself," said Dr. Ian Williamson, a family medicine researcher at the University of Southampton in England and lead author of the paper published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The best way to concoct a deadly microbe may not be in a secret lab but out in the open - on a farm. Half a century after farmers began including low-level doses of antibiotics in the feed they provide to their animals in the belief that it speeds growth, drug-resistant strains of several common germs that afflict humans have blossomed. The chicken business has been the most notorious (and the big producers are taking steps to address it). But there are other suspect animals on the farm, and similar remedies are in order.

Abusing antibiotics breeds bad bacteria The steps the editorial "Being sensible about staph" (Oct. 19) outlines for controlling methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureusbacterial infections will probably be ineffective. Staph bacteria are a constant inhabitant of normal skin and are everywhere in the environment around us - they can't be easily washed away. The Sun's two recent articles on staph infections overlooked the underlying causes of bacteria becoming resistant to antibiotics ("Battling the bug," Oct. 18, and "Deadly staph infection spreads," Oct. 17)

NEW YORK -- The rising incidence of drug-resistant staph infections has prompted a bipartisan federal measure that would provide $5 million in emergency funding to combat a potentially lethal agent that increasingly is emerging in schools, gyms and day-care centers. Sen. Charles E. Schumer, a New York Democrat, called on President Bush yesterday to drop his threat to veto a bill that provides money for public education campaigns aimed at preventing the spread of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA.

Yara Cheikh expected her pediatrician to diagnose the sickly rattle in her infant son's chest as a bacterial infection. "I went in looking for antibiotics," said the Towson mother of four. The pediatrician made a different call: Nine-month-old Hugh DeBrabander's illness was viral, an infection antibiotics are powerless against. Cheikh accepted the explanation and was happy to spare her son an unnecessary dose of medication. Not all young children are so fortunate. Many receive ineffective or even dangerous drugs for common illnesses such as colds, flu, sore throats and earaches.

The warning to sausage-eaters, about not watching it be made, should also direct the gaze of other meat-eaters away from factory-style cattle, pig or poultry farms. Exposure to the cruel and cramped conditions in which the animals are kept as well as the poor quality of their feed might well upset lunch. But what's downright unconscionable is the use by farmers of powerful antibiotics, partly to combat the ill effects of the animals' living conditions. The practice poses the risk of negating the antibiotics' healing effects on humans.

Advancis Pharmaceutical Corp., a Germantown drugmaker, filed a new drug application yesterday for Amoxicillin Pulsys, an antibiotic that has had a tough couple of years. About 18 months ago, the drug had failed in clinical trials, sending Advancis shares plummeting to new lows and leading to company layoffs. But a retooled trial returned positive results and, yesterday morning, representatives dropped off a compact disc at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration containing the application for approval of Amoxicillin Pulsys -- a moment Chief Executive Officer Edward M. Rudnic called a "significant milestone."

Some St. Joseph Medical Center staff members are being treated with antibiotics because of contact with a Johns Hopkins University professor who died there Sunday from a rare meningococcal infection, and several people who worked closely with her at the school also are taking the medication, hospital and university officials said yesterday. Nancy Ellen Forgione, a visiting assistant professor in the art history and master of liberal arts programs at the Hopkins Homewood campus, was admitted to St. Joseph on Saturday morning.

Lyme patients - many of them afflicted with debilitating ailments that began with the bite of a tiny tick - have traveled from Maryland and a dozen other states to a medical center in Valhalla, N.Y., where today they will demand that the Infectious Diseases Society of America retract medical treatment guidelines it released last month. Lyme disease sufferers experience headaches, fatigue, chills, fever and, in advanced cases, heart and nervous system problems. The last thing they needed was to have their pains burdened additionally by a segment of the medical community that by recommending against long-term antibiotic use essentially threatens to reduce the quality of care they receive.