Your Say: Alarm sounds on superbugs

• CRE infections are difficult to treat because they involve bacteria that are resistant to common antibiotics.
• Patients at risk are those who are being treated at hospitals and long-term-care facilities.
• These infections have been associated with patient mortality rates of 40%.

Potentially deadly bacteria that defy potent antibiotics have been identified in 42 states. Comments from Facebook:

All these years of overuse of antibiotics and improper infection control has led to this. I'm normally very optimistic about the future, but not in this case. It's only going to get much worse.

Christopher Blake Richardson

Your article "Drugs can't stop this killer" is frightening as we are all at risk from something like this.

I am also curious about the age groups hit, their diet and other factors. This gets back to the way we live today, eating processed foods, genetically modified organisms, and other additives in our food. Does this contribute to our immune systems not being hardy enough to fight the battle?

Steven Estes

More people are taking antibiotics now for little things, and they shouldn't. Eventually, the drugs are no longer effective when it really counts.

Jesse Smith

We're talking about medical facilities, which are essentially the meeting points for known and unknown bacteria, with humans as hosts. All it takes is the right combination of bacteria to meet by chance in a waiting room or operating room. Everyone should be forced to adhere to precautions before entering these health facilities, then be evaluated and quarantined if necessary. Spend the money upfront on proper staffing and development of procedures.

John Feragne Jr.

Letters to the editor:

Your report on antibiotic-resistant, infectious bacteria was horrifying ("Drugs can't stop this killer," Cover story, News, Nov. 29).

If the phenomenon of drug-resistant bacteria is spreading, the general population must become aware of this danger. History students know the horrors of past plagues and epidemics, yet today we think it couldn't happen again.

I would also suggest curtailing the use of antibiotics. Does my antibacterial dish soap create an environment in which bacteria develop immunity? And we shouldn't use antibiotics for every scratch or minor sniffle.

The human body is host to a wide variety of bacteria, many beneficial. However, we may have done something to our environment that has affected our immune systems.

Finally, it is outrageous that drug manufacturers have little incentive to develop a drug because it lacks profitability. We have to learn how to survive in the coming post-antibiotic era.

Rosalind Ellis Heid; Baltimore

While scientists may take years to find a pill to minimize the effect of the new strains of superbugs (this seems to be the first "go to" method in our society), why not take another approach?

As these infections involve hospitals and nursing homes, why can't a large chemical company create a chemical "bomb," such as those used to kill insects in a room, to at least interfere if only in a small way with transference.

Having acquired C-Diff from a hospital stay, I asked the maintenance worker what was done after the patient next to me was transferred to another facility. The worker stated he had an hour to scrub down the walls, ceiling and floors. Wouldn't a "suberbug bomb" used in a room isolated for several hours give another measure of safety?

Arleen N. Kaizer; Paradise Valley, Ariz.