George Washington University
See the following -
A Nevada Woman Dies of a Superbug Resistant to Every Available Antibiotic in the US
If it sometimes seems like the idea of antibiotic resistance, though unsettling, is more theoretical than real, please read on. Public health officials from Nevada are reporting on a case of a woman who died in Reno in September from an incurable infection. Testing showed the superbug that had spread throughout her system could fend off 26 different antibiotics. “It was tested against everything that’s available in the United States … and was not effective,” said Dr. Alexander Kallen, a medical officer in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s division of health care quality promotion...
- Login to post comments
Farm Antibiotics: Still Headed In The Wrong Direction
New federal data released at the end of last week indicates that sales of antibiotics for use in food animals in the United States are still rising, despite public pressure to change the practice and condemnation by medicine that farm misuse and overuse is contributing to antibiotic resistance that threatens human health. That’s not good. It’s especially not good because the numbers just released cover the year 2014—the first year in a voluntary three-year period, set by the Food and Drug Administration, during which use of farm antibiotics is supposed to be reduced. If agriculture and the veterinary pharma industry didn’t manage reductions in Year 1, they have a hard task ahead of them to create significant change in Years 2 and 3...
- Login to post comments
The Crazy Price of College Textbooks Is Pushing More US Universities to Adopt an “Open-Source” Solution
Seven Rhode Island universities, including Brown and Rhode Island College, will move to open-license textbooks in a bid to save students $5 million over the next five years, the governor announced Tuesday (Sept. 27). The initiative is meant to put a dent in the exorbitant cost of college and, more specifically, college textbooks. Mark Perry, a professor of economics and finance at the University of Michigan Flint, and a writer at the American Enterprise Institute, estimated last year that college textbook prices rose 945% between 1978 and 2014, compared to an overall inflation rate of 262% and a 604% rise in the cost of medical care...
- Login to post comments
When Government Rules by Software, Citizens Are Left in the Dark
IN JULY, SAN Francisco Superior Court Judge Sharon Reardon considered whether to hold Lamonte Mims, a 19-year-old accused of violating his probation, in jail. One piece of evidence before her: the output of algorithms known as PSA that scored the risk that Mims, who had previously been convicted of burglary, would commit a violent crime or skip court. Based on that result, another algorithm recommended that Mims could safely be released, and Reardon let him go. Five days later, police say, he robbed and murdered a 71-year old man...
- Login to post comments