Quote of the Day: The End of Antibiotics?

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From Cardiff University professor Tim Walsh on the spread of a newly discovered gene called NDM 1 that makes a wide variety of bacteria antibiotic-resistant:

In many ways, this is it. This is potentially the end. There are no antibiotics in the pipeline that have activity against NDM 1-producing enterobacteriaceae. We have a bleak window of maybe 10 years, where we are going to have to use the antibiotics we have very wisely, but also grapple with the reality that we have nothing to treat these infections with.

That’s from the Guardian, which reports that if the worst happens and we fail to find replacement antibiotics, transplant surgery will become virtually impossible, removing a burst appendix becomes a dangerous operation once again, pneumonia and tuberculosis come roaring back qas killers, and gonorrhea becomes hard to treat.

But then again, maybe we’ll find some replacements. All those gene sequencing breakthroughs we’ve been hearing about have to be good for something, don’t they?

(Via James Joyner.)

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

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