Les Bonnes Choses

If you follow the news at all, you may have heard about a strain of drug-resistant bacteria called C. difficile. What has gone on here is our slap-happy administration of antibiotics for any and all reasons has guaranteed that, through the magic of natural selection, subsequent generations of nasty microbes are able to shrug off the most commonly-used antibiotics. Gone are the days of the advice to 'suck it up' when you have a head cold. And don't forget the nervous nelly parents who try in vain to disinfect any surface with which their kids may come in contact. Antibacterial chemicals are added to hand soap despite the fact that any soap is a natural disinfectant (the hydrophobic ends of the soap molecules bond with and effectively dissolve the cell membrane of the bacteria which is about as bad for bacteria as evisceration is for people). So as a result, natural selection (or, in fairness to the less sophisticated reader, intelligent design) leaves us with an infectious agent that we have a bugger of a time trying to treat. Hence the name C. difficile. Perhaps we may one day see the emergence of a superbug with a 100% kill rate. Whenever someone contracts it, all you can do is shrug your shoulders and give a sympathetic pat on the back. I propose calling it C'est dommage.