Word: strains
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
While routinely examining a vaginal swab from a woman infected with gonorrhea, Dr. Ian Phillips of London's St. Thomas's Hospital made an alarming discovery: the swab contained a strain of gonococci, or gonorrhea-causing bacteria, unlike any that Phillips had ever seen before in his laboratory. The bean-shaped bugs not only were totally resistant to penicillin-the medication generally employed against this common and often dangerous venereal disease-but actually seemed to thrive in its presence...
Phillips' find was not unique. The new strain of bacteria had shown up in several other laboratories in Britain, and doctors at Travis Air Force Base in California encountered penicillin-proof gonococci in a young Air Force noncom who had just returned from the Philippines. Another example was reported in Maryland. By last week Atlanta's Center for Disease Control had verified 33 cases of gonorrhea in the U.S. that did not respond to conventional penicillin therapy. Alarmed by these reports, the World Health Organization (WHO) alerted VD experts everywhere to give top priority to learning more about...
...knows for sure how the gonococci acquired their disturbing new capability, but University of Washington Microbiologist Stanley Falkow, who in 1975 predicted the emergence of such a strain, thinks that it was through nature's own genetic engineering. He suggests that the gonococci incorporated bits of the master molecule DNA containing the genetic instructions for making the enzyme from other kinds of microbes that already have these genes...
However the new strain evolved, its existence vastly complicates the treatment of gonorrhea. Other antibiotics-notably spectinomycin-have proved effective. But they are often expensive (about $4 a dose for spectinomycin, v. only 50? for penicillin), could also meet bacterial resistance and, unlike penicillin, do not also knock out that other scourge, syphilis. At the very least, the new gonococci will require several visits to the doctor, as opposed to the old, cheap, one-shot treatment. Says Dr. Ronald St. John of the CDC's venereal disease division: "If this new strain becomes widespread, then a lot of money...
Probably not for 1980-unless Jimmy Carter turns out to be a singularly inept President, suffering foreign reversals, mismanaging the domestic economy and defaulting on his many reform promises. But what are the Republicans' longer-range prospects? There is surely a conservative strain in the country, but it is not easily exploited. The older "social" conservatism that was a reaction against radicals and the counterculture is fading. Economic conservatism-limited Gov- ernment spending to avoid inflation, no social programs that would cost middle-income people too much money-remains powerful. But against this must be weighed such general...