U.S. Calls Antibiotics Wrong Step on E. Coli

[Emily]

Note: post not intended as medical advice. It is just sharing information.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/03/health/03treatment.html

U.S. Calls Antibiotics Wrong Step on E. Coli
By GARDINER HARRIS
Published: June 2, 2011

There are few things more frightening in the world of food safety than becoming infected with the kind of toxic strain of E. coli that has sickened more than 1,500 people in Germany and beyond, but public health officials in the United States caution that the bacteria is not as scary as some reports suggest.

?Using terms like ?mutant killer bacteria? is irresponsible,? said Dr. Timothy Jones, the state epidemiologist in Tennessee. ?Bacteria mutate all the time, even the ones we?re comfortable with. And having a strain that is virulent is not unusual.?

Of particular concern to officials in the United States have been reports that the European outbreak involves bacteria resistant to antibiotics ? not because such reports suggest a particularly dangerous bug, but because they suggest that the Europeans are not looking in the right direction to fight the outbreak.

The accepted medical wisdom in the United States is that E. coli infections should not be treated with antibiotics at all, even if the strain is vulnerable to the drugs. And when a strain shows signs of resistance, treatment with the drugs is a particularly bad idea, said Dr. Phillip Tarr, a professor of pediatrics at Washington University.

?If you give antibiotics and the strain is resistant, then you give that bacteria a competitive advantage to the other bugs in your gut that are susceptible to the drugs, and so it?s an even better environment for the infection,? Dr. Tarr said.....