{"id":25,"date":"2014-03-28T11:12:56","date_gmt":"2014-03-28T15:12:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taggcleanhands.com\/blog\/?p=25"},"modified":"2015-04-23T10:45:54","modified_gmt":"2015-04-23T14:45:54","slug":"a-game-unsewn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taggcleanhands.com\/blog\/?p=25","title":{"rendered":"A Game Unsewn"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Official<\/a>

Official promo image \u00a9 Home Box Office, Inc. Download from www.hbo.com\/game-of-thrones<\/p><\/div>\n

Winter is coming.<\/p>\n

Already, we can see things start to unravel.\u00a0 Dangers unknown for most of our lives have returned, threatening us and our families.\u00a0 The long-standing comfort is waning and our defenses are useless.\u00a0 Anybody can die, many already have.\u00a0 Nobody is safe.<\/p>\n

You might think we’re talking about the book and television series Game of Thrones.\u00a0 We’re talking about something even more epic and frightening, with even more senseless death than a Red Wedding.\u00a0 We’re talking antibiotic resistance<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We take antibiotics for granted.\u00a0 When they were first introduced, they were considered a miracle.\u00a0 Previously, the only way to treat an infection was to either let the body heal itself or cut off the infected area.\u00a0 Deaths abounded from infections caught during such now-benign things as childbirth, minor injury, or unsafe food.\u00a0 Surgery was a last resort.<\/p>\n

In 1928, penicillin was discovered and by World War II was in clinical usage.\u00a0 This drug disabled bacteria of all kinds, from those that caused eye infections to Staph infections in burn victims.\u00a0 From this seemingly simple ability to quickly, easily and harmlessly reduce or remove the threat of infection came much of modern medicine.\u00a0 All modern surgery relies on antibiotics to reduce healing time and prevent complications (in addition to other antiseptic procedures).\u00a0 So does dentistry, livestock farming, autoimmune treatment, and oncology, to name a few.<\/p>\n

We have a problem, though.\u00a0 Bacteria that cause infection are living things like us, complete with DNA.\u00a0 Like all other living things, they are constantly evolving.\u00a0 Because of how quickly bacteria can multiply, they evolve quickly<\/em>, and it turns out that setting up a hostile environment in their home (the human body) leads to them adapting to survive it and when the old, non-adapted cousins die off it gives them lots of room to multiply.<\/p>\n

When it happens to the Staphylococcus we normally carry around on our skin and nose, it’s what we call multi-drug resistant staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA<\/a>, which is responsible for billions of dollars of healthcare costs per year in Canada.\u00a0 To our otherwise well-tolerated gut bacteria Clostridium difficile?\u00a0 All that freedom to move results in diarrhea so horrible it kills fourteen thousand per year in the United States alone<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It’s easy to get lost in this negativity, after all one reason that Game of Thrones is so popular is that there is so much intrigue, pain and suffering.\u00a0 It makes a great story!\u00a0 There is hope, however.<\/p>\n

We are vigilant – we have our own version of The Wall, watched over by those sworn to protect us.\u00a0 Those are the epidemiologists who have been ringing the alarms for a while now.\u00a0 Knowing that we’re at risk means that at least we’ve got several ways to help protect ourselves:<\/p>\n

Hand Hygiene<\/strong> – This should go without saying, but is so sadly overlooked that the World Health Organization and local infection control organizations dedicate a great deal to raising awareness every May 5th<\/a>.\u00a0 Hands can spread bacteria – and very few bacteria can resist an ethanol hand rub for long!<\/p>\n

Smart Prescribing<\/strong> – Antibiotics should be a secret weapon, not the opening salvo.\u00a0 Saving these drugs for the worst cases will slow down the rate <\/a>at which these organisms evolve to combat them.<\/p>\n

Public Help<\/strong> – Awareness, awareness, awareness.<\/a>\u00a0 If the average person in the street knows that\u00a0 selfishly forcing your MD to prescribe you antibiotics will eventually lead to medicine regressing to the year 1890, maybe they just might, you know, not do that.<\/p>\n

Sorry if the first paragraph sounded a bit dire, but that’s only because it is dire – if we don’t\u00a0 go and do anything about it.\u00a0 Winter is coming, but we’ve learned how to bundle up a bit and will hopefully survive it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Winter is coming. Already, we can see things start to unravel.\u00a0 Dangers unknown for most of our lives have returned, threatening us and our families.\u00a0 The long-standing comfort is waning and our defenses are useless.\u00a0 Anybody can die, many already…<\/span><\/p>\n

Read more ›<\/a><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[2,4,3],"class_list":["post-25","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","tag-antibiotic-resistance","tag-game-of-thrones","tag-hand-hygiene"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taggcleanhands.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taggcleanhands.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taggcleanhands.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taggcleanhands.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taggcleanhands.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.taggcleanhands.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":172,"href":"https:\/\/www.taggcleanhands.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25\/revisions\/172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taggcleanhands.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taggcleanhands.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taggcleanhands.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}