Word: bacterium
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...Canada - died after using mifepristone together with misoprostol, or misoprostol alone. The two drugs are routinely prescribed in combination; the first terminates the pregnancy, while the second causes uterine contractions and expels it. Most of the women died from infection with a dangerous, rare bacterium called Clostridium sordellii, one of the Clostridium species that may normally live in the vagina of healthy, non-pregnant women. Most also took misoprostol vaginally - many doctors prescribe it that way, though the drug is federally approved to be taken by mouth. But there is no evidence to date that the abortion drugs...
Another strategy is to ambush the bacteria with an unlikely ally: viruses. Vincent Fischetti at Rockefeller University is enlisting the help of bacteriophages, viruses that infect only bacterial cells, leaving human ones alone. They hijack the bacterium's genetic machinery and within minutes start to pump out hundreds of copies of themselves. When enough progeny build up inside the cell, the phages produce an enzyme that chews through the cell wall, causing it to explode with the force of a popping champagne cork and spew out the viral intruders...
...Bacterium...
...bacterium is hijacked into producing new viruses...
...Fortunately, say CDC experts, Speaker does not seem extremely contagious; while lab tests for the tuberculosis bacterium are positive, he has not yet produced evidence of the bug in his sputum, and, at last report, was not coughing. Still, erring on the side of caution, the U.S. health agency is offering every passenger on the two international flights taken by Speaker the opportunity to get tested...