Monday, January 16, 2017

Doom and Gloom Regarding the Superbug Which Will Kill Us All - Semi-Science

Much has been made in the last few days about a seventy-year-old woman who died in Nevada after every kind of antibiotic known failed to deal with the infection.  (RedOrbit:  Woman dies of infection no antibiotic could treat)

Note:  we loathe RedOrbit because some idiot whizkid there thought it would be clever to add the URL to the title for articles and many tabloid sites do that but it's a damn nuisance for using them in blogs and linking to them.  That, among other things, is why I rarely use RedOrbit as a reference.


If you review the article - I suggest you don't waste your time since I've only provided it as a convenient reference - you will see there's nothing in it which identifies this infection as anything more than a superbug, something she picked up in India.

There are predictions ten million a year will die from superbugs by 2050 and RedOrbit doesn't show any sign they even know what it was.


We call this semi-science since it doesn't give much information and only serves to stoke fears but the woman really did die from the disease.  The real science is when researchers try to discover what the bug was and why it should be so resistant.  There's quite a bit of that kind of medical fearmongering and you know well it hasn't added anything to your life.  Our choice is to support the scientists in reviewing what they do while these kinds of articles we view with contempt.

Meanwhile, we will continue loathing RedOrbit and their cheesy ways.

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