Superbugs Unplugged

Author, journalist, and hard hitting disease detective Maryn McKenna has been reporting on bad bugs since long before it was cool. In this episode, Maryn joins Lance and Matt to explore intersections of viral, bacterial, and fungal infections in the era of COVID-19. 

Even in the midst of a pandemic, the U.S. livestock and agriculture industry continues to overuse antibiotics critical to human health. If we don’t course correct soon, we run the risk of losing these drugs for good. 

Maryn offers her take on antibiotic resistance and walks us through her career reporting on every aspect of the issue from factory farming to stubborn pharmaceutical marketplaces. She has been an influential voice on the topic for years, having authored two books on the subject Superbug: The Fatal Menace of MRSA and Big Chicken: The Incredible Story of How Antibiotics Created Modern Agriculture and Changed the Way the World Eats.

Consumption, the Captain of all these Men of Death, the White Plague, the King’s Evil -- all names for the bacterial infection known today as Tuberculosis or TB. 

In the early nineteenth century, TB was one of the most common killers American adults, but since entering the antibiotic era, this once deadly disease has faded into the background of American life. Unfortunately, our eagerness to forget our past has allowed TB to continue to affect low and middle income countries across the globe. 

Dr. Carole Mitnick, Sc.D, Professor of Global Health & Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School  reminds us that Tuberculosis, and super-resistant tuberculosis, kills around 1.4 million people globally each year.  Continuing to deprioritize this nasty bug will only come back to bite us. 

To our amateur historians out there, give us a shout in the comments if you can figure out what turned Lance’s Aunt Navis blue. 

On this episode, co-hosts Matthew Wellington and Lance B. Price, interview Dr. Evgeni Sokurenko, MD, PhD., a Professor of Microbiology at the University of Washington and the Founder and Chairman of the Board at ID Genomics, Inc. Dr. Sokurenko’s work focuses on mechanisms of molecular adaptive evolution of genes in bacterial pathogens such as E. coli. In this episode, you will learn about the binding mechanisms that allow E. coli to attach to human tissues to cause urinary tract infections, mutations that allow E. coli to become more pathogenic, and overall implications that such mutations have on antibiotic resistance and the treatability of bacterial infections. 

This month our Pod takes on a new format. We decided to air the panel discussion organized by our podcast co-host, U.S. PIRG, titled: Antibiotics in Agriculture: Preventing the Next Pandemic. It was an hour-long, virtual event co-sponsored by Harvard Law School that featured a host of experts from a variety of fields including infectious disease, business, market investment, advocacy, and journalism. It was held on November 18 -- the first day of World Antibiotic Awareness Week. A great way to start this important week! We really hope you enjoy it.

On this episode, co-hosts, Matthew Wellington and Lance B. Price, along with U.S. PIRG’s Sydney Riess, interview Matt Kuhn, DVM, PhD, a AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow at the U.S. Department of Defense. Dr. Kuhn’s expertise lies in dairy medicine, and his work has focused on the prevention of disease and the reduction of antibiotic use in cattle. In this episode, you will learn about the various challenges that farmers and veterinarians face with regards to antibiotic use on farms as well as the steps that both scientists and policymakers can take in order to effectively tackle antibiotic misuse and overuse. 

On this episode, co-host, Matthew Wellington, interviews Dr. Sameer Patel, pediatric infectious disease physician and Director of the Antimicrobial Stewardship Program at the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago. In this episode, they discuss what it means to be an advocate and a health professional, and you will learn about Dr. Patel's experience working on health policy advocacy as a health professional and its importance especially in today's health climate. 
 
 

On this episode, co-host, Matthew Wellington, interviews Dr. David Wallinga, Senior Health Advisor at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). Dr. Wallinga is a physician with over 20 years of experience working on policy and advocacy, and his current work focuses on antibiotic overuse in U.S. livestock production. In this episode, they discuss Better Burgers: Why It's High Time the U.S. Beef Industry Kicked It's Antibiotic Habit, a report from the NRDC that analyzes antibiotic overuse in the U.S. beef industry and its relationship to antibiotic-resistant bacteria and its negative impact on human health.

On this episode, co-hosts Lance B. Price and Matthew Wellington are back "together apart" (socially distanced, of course!) to discuss parallels between COVID-19 and antibiotic resistance. The co-hosts look at antibiotic resistance through the lens of COVID-19 by diving into the themes of isolationism, individualism, a lack of a coordinated national response to address current public health issues, and over-dependence on vaccine/antibiotic development, all of which threaten our ability to effectively and efficiently address both issues. 

In this episode of Superbugs Unplugged, co-host, Dr. Lance Price, interviews Brad Spellberg, chief medical officer at the Los Angeles + University of Southern California Medical Center and medical director of biosciences for Los Angeles county. Dr. Spellberg has over 16 years of experience working on national antibiotic policies related to use and development. Today, you’ll learn about Dr. Spellberg’s national public policy work, the current state of the antibiotic industry, and present-day society’s need for sustainable antibiotic development as it relates to antibiotic resistance. 

In this episode, co-host, Dr. Lance B. Price, interviews Dr. Lee Riley, an infectious disease professor in the division of Infectious Disease and Vaccinology at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health. Dr. Lee’s research focuses on diseases of urban slums, in which antimicrobial resistance is an emerging issue, but it’s his ground breaking work on the origins of antibiotic-resistant E. coli that cause urinary tract infections that is the focus of this episode. You’ll learn about the various types of E. coli, where they are found, and how they can cause UTIs (including from food!) and develop antibiotic resistance that negatively impacts human health.