Bacteria
“Fighting Invisible Killers”
Scholastic Scope: The Language Arts Magazine
January 2014 Edition, pages 5-9
Bacteria surround us every day. These little “bugs” are invisible to the eye and most do not harm us. Many are necessary for us to survive, like the bacteria in our stomachs and intestines that help us to digest food. But some bacteria are very dangerous to us. Addie Rereich became very sick in May 2011, when she was 11 years old. What started as something that her doctors and mother were not worried about turned into something very bad. After testing, Addies was found to have MRSA, a super bacteria that is resistant to most antibiotics. She was admitted to the hospital and was put on a ventilator, but the ventilator contained another kind of superbug that was even worse than the MRSA that she had been admitted for. While she was given various antibiotics, they never worked for long and the situation looked very bad for Addie. Her mother was told to expect the worst.
Bacteria have been killing people for thousands of years. For a long time, a small cut could kill a person because of the bacteria that would enter the bloodstream through the cut and cause the person to become sick. Things that we consider minor, like strep throat, were considered a death sentence before 1928. It was in September of 1928 that the Scottish scientist discovered, completely by accident, a new “wonder drug.” While searching for a cure to infection, some of his glass plates had started to grow mold. He noticed that none of the bacteria were on or around the mold. It led him to study the mold to find out what it was that was causing the bacteria to stop growing. His discovery turned out to be penicillin. With this drug, we were able to stop infections from happening, able to start doing “routine” surgeries (like setting broken bones or removing kidneys), and use the medicine that Fleming discovered to stop the infections in their tracks. The medicine came to be
Scholastic Scope: The Language Arts Magazine
January 2014 Edition, pages 5-9
Bacteria surround us every day. These little “bugs” are invisible to the eye and most do not harm us. Many are necessary for us to survive, like the bacteria in our stomachs and intestines that help us to digest food. But some bacteria are very dangerous to us. Addie Rereich became very sick in May 2011, when she was 11 years old. What started as something that her doctors and mother were not worried about turned into something very bad. After testing, Addies was found to have MRSA, a super bacteria that is resistant to most antibiotics. She was admitted to the hospital and was put on a ventilator, but the ventilator contained another kind of superbug that was even worse than the MRSA that she had been admitted for. While she was given various antibiotics, they never worked for long and the situation looked very bad for Addie. Her mother was told to expect the worst.
Bacteria have been killing people for thousands of years. For a long time, a small cut could kill a person because of the bacteria that would enter the bloodstream through the cut and cause the person to become sick. Things that we consider minor, like strep throat, were considered a death sentence before 1928. It was in September of 1928 that the Scottish scientist discovered, completely by accident, a new “wonder drug.” While searching for a cure to infection, some of his glass plates had started to grow mold. He noticed that none of the bacteria were on or around the mold. It led him to study the mold to find out what it was that was causing the bacteria to stop growing. His discovery turned out to be penicillin. With this drug, we were able to stop infections from happening, able to start doing “routine” surgeries (like setting broken bones or removing kidneys), and use the medicine that Fleming discovered to stop the infections in their tracks. The medicine came to be