I hope everyone had a great 4th of July. Jacob saw his first real fireworks display and loved it at first. We were watching from the 12th floor of a building right on the waterfront, so it was spectacular. Unfortunately, he was coming down with a fever and by the end was pretty unhappy. He is fine again now.

This was a big week, both locally where my friend qualified for the ballot for NYC's Sept. 9th primary election, and nationally where Obama's surge continued even as the Democrats once again showed less spine than we would like them to. More below.

According to the Union of Concerned Scientists recent newsletter, the antibiotic resistant strain of Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) that has been an increasing problem in hospitals around the world is now infecting apparently healthy schoolkids outside of hospitals. This is a major development. Up until now anti-biotic resistance was only occasionally a problem outside of hospitals (so-called community-acquired" cases). This may be changing. According to the Centers for Disease Control, MRSA was responsible for almost 19,000 US deaths in 2005.

You can help stop this by your personal meat choices and by pressuring your Congress Critters to support the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act. VERY few of our Reps and Senators have become co-sponsors yet. Their slow response mean more sick children.

The primary is over and our nominee is Barack Obama.

This was going to be a historic moment no matter what. Once the field narrowed to Obama and Clinton, we KNEW we would make history. We would have either the first black or first woman nominated for President by one of the two major parties. Well, THIS, folks, is history. Real and amazing history. We have now done what our parents couldn't do.

Since you’re busy and I’m not, I try to survey the arcane world of bleeding-edge research and abstract the few key findings worth your attention. The following are sourced from Science, the publication of the National Association for the Advancement of Science, of which I am a member until one of their editors stumbles onto this website.

MRSA (Methcillin Resistant Staph Areus) is on the rise in many communities.  This is because doctors give out way too many antibiotics and it is causing resistant strains of bacterial infections to develop. This disease is hard to treat because it is resistant to easy antibiotics and only the more expensive antibiotics will treat it.  Or that is the dogma we hear.  Just one thing gets in the way of that story...the facts.

The Ride for Farmers, to accommodate requests now coming in from riders in other parts of Pennsylvania, and even from other parts of the country, is expanding the "trail".

For all those concerned about our farmers, our food, NAIS, silence around labeling, diseases we are being exposed to, loss of vitamin companies, control on our own property and in our communities, and corporate greed overwhelming all that matters to us ... saddle up.

Spreading the word of impending harm, just as Paul Revere did, is democratic down to its core.

It has been an eventful week. The economy has shown signs of considerable collapse. Bear Stearns, collapsed from being worth some $130 a share to being bought out for a mere $2 a share. AND it needed bailing out by the government as well. Inflation and stagnation...what used to be called stagflation. That is what we are seeing. Back when we first saw this horrible combination, at least our Presidents admitted it. Ford's slogan was "WIN: Whip Inflation Now!" It was worthless, but at least it admitted the problem. Bush merely "reassures" us that there is nothing to worry about. He claims there is no recession, no inflation, no problem. "Don't worry, be happy." The mantra that worked so well for his father.

This week it was all about the economy, the war and race. That's a pretty heavy week!

About a year and a half ago, I developed a serious work-related staph infection around one knee that had turned into a fever and made walking difficult. I went to a doctor who misdiagnosed it and gave me a powerful antibiotic, a fluoroquinolone, which caused a life-threatening reaction. I looked up this class of interestingly effective drugs and found a host of contraindications.

And today, my brother, who had previously suffered a mild internal injury and has since discovered that the injury became infected, was prescribed a fluoroquinolone. He is seventeen.

The Progressive Democrat Newsletter grew out of the frustration of the 2004 election. After much pressure from readers, this email newsletter is now going the blog route. I update the blog once a week focusing on both national issues and issues of interest to particular regions or states. In general, NYC, California, New Jersey, Virginia and the Midwest get special attention simply because those are the areas where I seem to have the most readers. However, these days I am too busy to give each region the attention I used to. As my readership on Daily Gotham and Culture Kitchen goes up, I have to spend more time on those sites. So this newsletter is fading a bit. I hope it is still usefull to you, though.

This week I am focusing once again on Fox News, keeping antibiotics effective and a critical election THIS YEAR in Mississippi. I also present a new feature that started with an unexpectedly recommended Daily Kos diary as well as some local actions for Michigan, NYC and Indiana.

We do a lot of griping about what's going wrong in America on a lot of fronts, obviously including the state of healthcare.  Recently WalMart started offering low cost prescription drugs and to my knowledge a few smaller chains and drugstores followed suit.  At least one drug chain in select Ohio markets offered free antibiotics.  Their program has just caught on in a big way:

Publix supermarket chain is going further than most retailers trying to lure shoppers into their stores with low-cost prescription drugs, announcing Monday it will offer seven antibiotics free.

"It can't be any more affordable than free," said Gov. Charlie Crist, who went to a suburban Fort Myers Publix store to help the company announce the initiative and laud it for a "great corporate ethic."

Story link: http://www.palmbeachpost.com/...

Apparently, the Food and Drug Administration considers bovine health - and profits of the drug and cattle industries - more important than saving human lives.

The Washington Post reports that the FDA is prepared to approve an antibiotic drug for use in treating cattle for a common respiratory disease. Such widespread use of the drug would promote antibiotic resistance, say experts, making it and similar drugs ineffective in treating human diseases. The drug, cefquinome, "belongs to a class of highly potent antibiotics that are among medicine's last defenses against several serious human infections," including an antibiotic that is the "only effective treatment for serious infections in cancer patients." [WaPo]  And, as fewer antibiotics remain effective, the U.S. becomes increasingly vulnerable to biological disaster.

The ArmyTimes is reporting layoffs of case workers who handle advocacy and needs of the severely wounded and their families.  Supporting the troops is apparently hitting hard up against DoD cost cutting measures.  I suspect Congressional approval wasn't involved in this decision.

http://www.armytimes.com/...

But if a soldier is severely wounded, there's another set of killers on the loose ready to take advantage of weakened health - super germs:

http://www.wired.com/...

To refine Pogo, we have met the enemy and he is within our guts.

A few weeks ago, an FDA expert panel by a vote of 6-4 decided against the approval of the use of the antibiotic cefquinome in cattle.  Unfortunately, I've heard through the grapevine that the political appointees at the FDA plan to overrule the expert panel and approve the use of cefquinome.  The chairman of the panel is under pressure to alter the panel's findings, and the FDA has not posted the minutes of the meeting, which is apparently required by law.

About the post title:  cefepime, like cefquinome, is what is known as a fourth-generation cephalosporin antibiotic.  While cefquinome is not used to treat people, resistance to cefquinome can also confer resistance to cefepime which is a medically important antibiotic.