Nolen: The first TB patient that I sat down with in Nairobi was a man who had extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis, or XDR-TB — essentially there’s a just a very slim chance that the only drugs we know about will actually cure him. We’re out of options. And he’d come in that day, like he had very optimistically every day for …
Read More »Tag Archives: Bacteria
Food Safety Jeopardized by Onslaught of Funding and Staff Cuts
In the last few years, foodborne pathogens have had devastating consequences that alarmed the public. Bacteria in infant formula sickened babies. Deli meat ridden with listeria killed 10 people and led to 60 hospitalizations in 19 states. Lead-laden applesauce pouches poisoned young children. In each outbreak, state and federal officials connected the dots from each sick person to a tainted …
Read More »Shakes Sold to Nursing Homes Recalled After Deadly Listeria Outbreak
Frozen shakes sold to nursing homes, hospitals and other institutions have been recalled after the drinks were tied to a yearslong deadly listeria outbreak, the Food and Drug Administration said on Friday. Since 2018, at least 11 people have died from the outbreak and dozens have been hospitalized, the F.D.A. said, but previous investigations had not been able to find …
Read More »Trillions of Viruses Live in Your Body. A.I. Is Trying to Find Them.
The viruses we know best are the ones that make us sick — the influenza viruses that send us to bed and the smallpox viruses that may send us to the grave. But healthy people are rife with viruses that don’t make us ill. Scientists estimate that tens of trillions of viruses live inside of us, though they’ve identified just …
Read More »Pope Francis Has Bilateral Pneumonia
Pope Francis, who remains hospitalized, has bilateral pneumonia, the Vatican said on Tuesday. The term simply means pneumonia in both lungs, said Dr. James Musser, director of the center for infectious diseases at the Houston Methodist Research Institute. He added that, without examining a patient, he could not say anything specific about his condition. In general, pneumonia is an infection …
Read More »Louis Pasteur’s Relentless Hunt for Germs Floating in the Air
Louis Pasteur was at his most comfortable when working in his Paris laboratory. It was there that he had some of his greatest scientific triumphs, including experiments that helped confirm germs can cause disease. “Everything gets complicated away from the laboratory,” he once complained to a friend. But in 1860, years before he became famous for developing vaccines and heating …
Read More »Her Discovery Wasn’t Alien Life, but Science Has Never Been the Same
With TV cameras pointed at her, Felisa Wolfe-Simon began speaking at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 2, 2010. “I’ve discovered — I’ve led a team that has discovered — something that I’ve been thinking about for many years,” Dr. Wolfe-Simon said. She was at that time a visiting researcher with the U.S. Geological Survey, speaking to a sizable …
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