Superbugs found in Delhi water; WHO warns of post-antibiotic era

This news is especially scary when you remind yourself of the abysmal state of the Indian public health care system.

According to a British study published online in Lancet Journal on April 7, NDM-1 Superbugs were found in 2 drinking water samples and 51 seepage water samples from sites within a 12 kilometer radius in west and central New Delhi between September and October 2010.  The NDM-1 (New Delhi Metallo-beta-lactamase-1) gene enables bacteria to become resistant to almost all powerful antibiotics.

"The inhabitants of New Delhi are continually being exposed to multidrug-resistant and NDM 1-positive bacteria," said Mark Toleman of Britain's Cardiff University School of Medicine who co-authored the study with Timothy Walsh, also of Cardiff University. 

The study finds that this gene is no longer contained in hospitals and is now borne in the environment, virulent at 30 degrees Celsius (which just so happens to be the mean temperature of summer and monsoon season in Delhi) and can easily move from one bacteria species to another.   

The Hindu spoke with a peer reviewer of the study, Dr. Mohammad Shahid of Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College and Hospital, Aligarh Muslim University, who called for broader epidemiological and environmental studies in and around the city of Delhi in an accompanying commentary on the article in the journal.  Dr. Shahid wrote "the potential for wider international spread...of NDM-1 is real and should not be ignored" but allayed fears to the Hindu correspondent pointing out the gene has entered the environment but has yet to be established in the tap water, with a low positive testing of two tap water samples.

WHO officials worldwide are sounding a warning on the same day, designated World Health Day, saying bugs are overcoming drugs at a faster rate than new drug development and the world is on the brink of a post-antibiotic era where common infections will once again, turn deadly.

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How do you solve a problem like tobacco?

Image by Ferran. via Flickr
The Indian Supreme Court is expected to announce a ban on smokeless tobacco products on April 13.  A formidable coalition of the Ministry of Family and Health Welfare, the Public Health Foundation India and the World Health Organization met for a two day national consultation and drew up recommendations to ensure the success of the ban.

Look. We all watched Russel Crowe play real life tobacco industry whistle-blower Jeffrey Wigand in The Insider.  The debate and deception is over.  We know smoking is not only injurious to health; it is highly addictive and unlike other "lifestyle" diseases, it adversely affects families and co-workers in close proximity to the smoker as well.  Experts estimate smoking may have killed more than 600,000 non smokers in one year, causing one in 100 deaths, according to a WHO study published in Lancet last year.  That's on top of the 5 million deaths per annum worldwide, projected to rise to a death rate of one in six adults per annum by 2030.

So do we ban and criminalize tobacco like marijuana and other illegal drugs?

• If not, why not?  Marijuana, cocaine and whatever else the kids are doing these days never killed anyone through second hand smoke.  If you're going to send drug dealers to jail, why not the man who sold your teenager his first fag? 
• If yes, why don't you criminalize alcohol too?  According to the WHO, alcohol abuse is one of the leading causes of death and disability worldwide.  Excessive alcohol consumption is responsible for 4 per cent of deaths and disability worldwide, nearly as much as tobacco and five times as much as illicit drugs.

Confession:  I missed The Insider.  I accept my fair share of the blame for the commercial loss of $29.7 million to Disney and droopy morale for making under-appreciated high quality thoughtful cinema based on real events, cheering on truth telling.  However, I did see the Christopher Buckley novel inspired political satire, Thank You For Smoking.  That might explain why I am in favor of drug rehabilitation programs, government regulation and social experimentation with prevention tactics to find the most effective ways to help people eschew harmful substances like alcohol, cigarettes and drugs for life from a young age.  I'm kidding, of course.  It's a correlation, not a causation.  I believed in personal responsibility and freedom of choice before I ever heard of Jason Reitman.

As a casual non-smoking observer, here is my partial list of suggestions off the top of my head:

1. Governments should impose punitively high taxes on all tobacco related products
2. Regulators should continue the search for more effective health warning labels on product packaging, with particular emphasis on appropriate illustrations for low-information smokers in developing countries
3. Regulators should require the global tobacco industry, controlled by a few American, British and Japanese corporations, to fund public service health campaigns and ban direct and indirect product promotions activities
4. Regulators should ban indoor smoking in private and public places
5. Parents, schools and non-profits should work together to teach children personal responsibility and educate them on myriad health risks associated with smoking
6. Researchers should continue to test success of various methods, including paid incentives
7. Researchers, international aid agencies and farmers should work together to find economically feasible crop alternatives  
8. Media and popular celebrities should continue to advocate against the ills of smoking - after all, they make up the group of elite 20k users on Twitter everybody reads, especially those impressionable kids.

What do you smokers think we should do?  

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Why I detest organized religion

When I first heard this news, I was too sickened to read the article for several hours.  It's a familiar tiny hard knot of rage and frustration mixed with heartbreak and anguish in my gut.  I get it every time I hear an innocent died because of the deep disrespect an idiot showed to another idiot over said idiot's imaginary friend - take your pick on which idiot.

"Islam is of the Devil?" Source: Suite101.com/ Menno weekly review - Scott Camil

Internationally reviled Christian preacher Terry Jones who thinks "Islam is of the Devil" looks good on tee shirts and mugs and caps and book titles, sneaked in a Quran burning in front of a small crowd of less than 30 at a church in Florida on March 20, 2011, six months after he promised to heed six billion people who warned him not to turn September 11, 2010 into Burn the Quran Day.  "We will definitely not burn the Quran, no," he said on NBC's Today Show.  "Not today, not ever."

Predictably, this bait and switch act of incomprehensible and indefensible stupidity was met with a dignified silence from the Muslim community in the United States but angered many others worldwide, including the Pakistan government, arguably the single most important strategic ally of the U.S. government in the "war on terror" for as long as the American people choose to blindly bless duplicitous corruption with tax dollars from their grandchildren.  Sadly, it also provoked armed insurgents in a crowd of protesters in the northern region of Afghanistan to kill 20 U.N. employees, killing eight foreigners and beheading two. 

Terry Jones got what he wanted and what he knew was coming.  Might I suggest, he burn and rot in hell.  Thank you, suspended New York City Christian school teacher.  If I didn't have my own blog, I might be venting this rant on your crazy website.

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