On Microbes

Erin Koch has an excellent post over at Somatosphere regarding the social life of microbes.  It is common to think of microbes as purely biological entities, and indeed, there is obviously something "biological" about microbes.  The term "biological" is nettlesome, because, on the one hand, it is inadvisable to suggest that the framing of illness and disease entities like bacteria or viruses (and, of late, genes, which are not disease entities per se but can cause disease on the molecular level) strips these entities of any notion of reality outside of this framing.  Yet, on the other hand, to term something a biological entity often erroneously implies that these entities exist in some realm hermetically sealed off from social and cultural influences and understandings.  (For more, see the Lexicon entry on the social construction of disease).

This, as Charles Rosenberg and Richard Lewontin suggest, is fallacious as well.  Thus Rosenberg argues that diseases are both biological and social entities, and more so, are social actors.  Koch discusses some of these matters in thinking about TB, and concludes that the irreducibly social nature of TB

underscore[s] the fuzzy nature of cultural lines that are taken-for-granted between microbial and social realms, and call into question the ways in which social scientists confront biology that run the risk of producing both biological and cultural reductionisms.  Clearly microbes are part of the social fabric, rather than external agents that infect sociality.

Read the whole post, as they say.

Also read Rosenberg, Explaining Epidemics, for excellent analysis on similar themes.

Comments

[Dan]

Sometimes, Death Is Good….. For A Vicious Unicellular Microorganism

There are a variety of different types of foreign bacterial infections one can get from many different sources, yet some are more common than others. If they are not beneficial for your physiology, they all should die in order to restore your health.
Bacteria are a simple life form, yet are incredibly productive and efficient. As with other life forms, it exists to reproduce, and does so about every hour, and evolves and adapts to its environment as needed. To do this, it fully utilizes all available resources and energy to develop the protein that is essential for its survival, and bacteria have the ability to adapt as needed to assure this happens.
It needs exactly 7 genes to produce the essential ribosomes for this to occur. Any more or less genes than 7, the bacteria is not maximizing its efficiency to survive and reproduce. Amazing.
Strept infections are caused by what are called gram positive bacteria, and are unique that these bacteria grow in pairs. Staph bacterial invasions are gram positive as well, yet it is the MRSA, Methicillin Resistant Staff Aureous microbes of this type often are very difficult to treat normally when a patient suffers from their damage from being invaded by these bacteria. Another difficult situation is when a patient is infected by VRE, Vancomycin Resistant Enterococci, as well.
These MRSA and VRE pathogenic or disease causing bacteria are the ones that are the most clinically concerning for the health care provider.
Group A strep infections can cause diseases such as strep throat and pneumonia. Since there are several types of bacteria, a diagnostic test called a culture and sensitivity is usually performed to assure the correct antibiotic is selected for treatment, as the bacteria are identified with this method.
Typically, fluid from the area suspected of being infected is obtained from the patient suspected to have an infection and smeared on what is called a petrie dish. And then these dishes are incubated for 2 to 3 days. Gram positive bacteria stain during this process a dark violet or blue. Gram negative bacteria would be pink in color, and are capable of harm as well to a human being.
When the culture is complete, technology offers recommendations on the appropriate class or brand of antibiotic for this bacteria present in another person- presuming the bacteria will not be resistant to the antibiotic recommended, as this happens on occasion.
Usually, classes of antibiotics that are used to treat gram positive strep infections that are not VRE or MRSA are cephalosporins, macrolides, or general penicillins. If the microbe that is causing the infection is resistant to the antibiotic from such classes that are administered to the infected patient, particularly with methicillin and vancomycin, which is the case with VRE and MRSA bacteria, then there are other more aggressive antibiotics that will be chosen for this patient.
Such brands and types of antibiotics for MRSA and VRE bacteria include Zyvox, which has both IV and oral dosage options. There are also other antibiotics, such as Cubicin. However these antibiotics for antibiotic resistant bacteria are given usually due to infections that have progressed to a more serious nature within a patient infected in such a way.
Progressive medical conditions include sepsis, or blood infection, osteomyelitis, or bone infection, or Pneumonia, which is a serious lung infection. A hospital stay is normally required with such patients, as the last antibiotics mentioned for MRSA and VRE bacterial infections are given by IV administration initially for several days, if not several weeks.
There are numerous classes and types of antibiotics available, yet bacterial resistance to most of these antibiotics constantly remains serious concern for the health care provider, and the infected patient, with MRSA at the top of the list of concerns for the health care providers.
Dan Abshear
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dhqp/ar_mrsa_spotlight_2006.html