a PSA: there’s a fungus amungus

This isn’t an easy subject to want to know about, nor to write up, but knowing can serve us, and those we care about, far better than not knowing.  I’ve received permission from the author of the following Cliffs Notes version of the second much longer exposé to use more than fair use guidelines.  And the killer is seems to be an agricultural one.

‘Mystery Killer Spans the Globe’ by Robert Hunziker, April 12, 2019, counterpunch.org

Hunziker opens with the reminder that health experts have warned for years that the vast over-use of antibiotics have led to the bacterial adaptation of a number of ‘Superbugs’ such as MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) and that at least 2,000,000 Usians get antibiotic resistant infections a year.

“Notably, gluttonous overuse of antimicrobial drugs to combat bacteria and fungi via hospitals, clinics, and farms is backfiring and producing superbugs or “Nightmare Bacteria,” which is especially lethal for people with compromised immune systems and autoimmune disorders that use steroids to suppress bodily defenses.

Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (“CDC”) recently labeled a fungus called Candida auris or C. auris an “Urgent Threat.” This Nightmare Bacteria is a brutal killer that’s unstoppable and flat-out travels fast.

The CDC claims antibiotic resistance is “one of the biggest public health challenges of our time.”

According to the World Health Organization: “The world is facing an antibiotic apocalypse.” [snip]

“According to a recent British governmental study, without new medicines and without curbing unnecessary use of antimicrobial drugs, infections followed by ensuing deaths will likely eclipse cancer deaths over succeeding decades. The harsh fact is nearly one-half of patients that contract C. auris die within 90 days. (Source: Pew Campaign on Human Health and Industrial Farming)

Nowadays, the dangers of “Nightmare Bacteria” are growing out of control. The latest concern is that C. auris will begin spreading to healthier populations, even though healthy people are normally not at risk. Within only five years, C.auris has established itself as one of the world’s most intractable health threats. It is drug-resistant, tenacious and nearly impossible to exterminate and travels the globe looking for innocent victims, killing people mostly in hospital settings.

C.auris has already established a beachhead in Venezuela, Spain, the UK, India, Pakistan, South Africa, New York, New Jersey, and Illinois. Nobody knows where else it may be cloaking.

A British hospital aerosolized hydrogen peroxide in a C.auris-infected room for one week solid. Subsequently, only one organism grew back in a Petri dish in the room. It was C. auris. The hospital serves wealthy patients from Europe and the Middle East, and it has not made a public announcement of the outbreak.

An outbreak of C.auris at a Spanish hospital resulted in 41% deaths of infected patients. The hospital has not made a public announcement of the outbreak.”

He narrates similar stories of secrecy, as as hospitals and governmental agencies keep C.auris’s whereabouts secret.

“Public transparency is shunned. Hospitals and local governments are reluctant to disclose outbreaks because of concern about tarnishing reputations and spreading of rumors. Even the Center for Disease Control is not allowed, in a pact with states, to publicly announce outbreaks.”

Now I’m not sure that this is correct, but it may just be my ignorance:

“There are multiple causes behind antibiotic-resistant infection outbreaks. As for one, using antifungals on crops to prevent rotting, in turn, contributes to drug-resistant fungi infecting people. Also, infamously, antibiotics are widely used (in fact, overused-by-a-country-mile) for disease prevention of farm animals.”

‘A Lethal Industrial Farm Fungus Is Spreading Among Us’, Alex Liebman and Robert Wallace, PhD, independentsciencenews.org, April 24, 2019

Synopsis: Candida auris is a drug-resistant yeast that has begun infecting and killing immuno-compromised people in hospitals all over the world. Its rapid spread and drug resistance probably stems from fungicide use in industrial agriculture. The use of fungicides in industrial monocultures has intensified greatly in recent years. This is creating drug-resistant fungal strains as well as destroying fungal ecosystems that would have restrained them. Agroecological methods offer excellent and credible alternative crop production systems say the authors.

“Because antifungals are used to ‘combat’ the yeast/fungus Candida auris, according to Independent Science News: “Candida auris has evolved resistance to a suite of azole antifungals, including fluconazole, with variable susceptibilities to other azoles, amphotericin B, and echinocandins. Azoles, used in both crop protection and medical settings, are broad-spectrum fungicides, annihilating a wide range of fungi rather than targeting a specific type.”

The authors also mention a possible C. auris precursor:
“One fungus, Aspergillus fumigatus, may offer a conditional preview of C. auris’s trajectories present and future.

Azole antifungals itraconazole, voriconazole, and posaconazole have long been used to treat pulmonary asperillogosis, the infection caused by A. fumigatus. The fungi causes approximately 200,000 deaths per year, in the past decade rapidly developing resistance to antifungal drugs.”

It’s quite a tome, full of anti-biotic and antifungals amounts used globally, maps, charts, diagrams, how it spreads, adapts, and technical stuff I couldn’t understand if my life depended on it.

But i case someone I care about does depend on it, I poked around to see whether or mainstay anti-viral, antibotic replacement, colloidal silver, would help kill these fungi, and what else might, given they are yeasts, which thrive on sugars.

If you Bingle the two terms (C. auris and Colloidal Silver), lots of hits come up say yes, it’s efficacious.  But the smallest particles of silver are far more desirable than others, and the home kit this author recommends as a money-saver might be far large particles of silver.

This site was a two-bagger, recommending both colloidal silver and a Keto diet: ‘Why Keto Is The Best For Deadly Candida Auris Symptoms?’, keto-longevity.com, i.e. eliminating sugars and carbohydrates (broken down into glucose), although the author doesn’t seem to recognize there are veggies that can be enjoyed on a keto diet. Here’s one such list, for instance.

But you’ll do your own research if the need arises, of course, and here’s hoping the need won’t arise.