CDCs Nightmare Bacteria Reveals Need for Natural MedicineSayer Ji The CDC describe CRE bacteria as a triple threat: Tom Fieden, MD, MPH, Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, generated quite a bit of alarm within the media by referring to CRE as nightmare bacteria: CRE are nightmare bacteria. Our strongest antibiotics dont work and patients are left with potentially untreatable infections. Doctors, nurses, hospital leaders, and public health, must work together now to implement CDCs detect and protect strategy and stop these infections from spreading. [emphasis added] Drug resistance an increasingly prevalent phenomena, whether we are talking about infection or cancer is proving to the world that, except for emergency medicine and other rare exceptions, the drugs really dont work as advertised at least not if the goal is to save lives. Suppressing or treating symptoms often results in turning acute health conditions into chronic ones, compounded by the subsequent poisoning by a battery xenobiotic (foreign to our biology) medications. The fact that the majority of the drugs used as part of the conventional medical standard of care are xenobiotic petrochemical derivatives rarely gets acknowledged. Folks are being massively, collaterally poisoned in the war against germs and symptoms, and it is the pathogens and diseases that are being blamed and not our misguided effort to use poisons to fight conditions, most of which if not being caused by poisoning or nutrient deficiencies and incompatibilities, are at least contributing to them. The CDC, and the conventional drug-based medical establishment it represents, is learning that chemical warfare against germs has its limitations. In fact, this approach is actually creatingeven stronger, more resistant bacteria. MRSA, for instance, that terrible bogeyman of an infection, is an acronym for Methicillin-Resistant Staphyloccous Aeurus. It actually emerged within the context of the overuse of methicillin and other penicillin-type antibiotics; meaning, it exists not despite of antibiotics, but because of them. Bacteria are far more resilient than multicellular organisms such as us. Many strains have actually evolved capabilities that we do not have, such asdegrading pesticides and chemicals like BPA for us. In fact, some have even developed ways touse deadly radioactive waste (uranium-238) as an energy source! When we expose ourselves to chemotherapy (yes, antibiotics are chemical therapies), the subpopulation within that bacterial colony that are resistant to these chemicals actually thrive, as competing organisms have been destroyed. Even when you kill 99% of an inflection, 1% develops resistance, produces biofilm, and now becomes several orders of magnitude more resistant to the original chemical. With time it will come back with a vengeance, assuming the predisposing factors associated with infectious disease susceptibility, e.g. nutrition, chemical exposures, stress, have not been rectified. Also, the chemicals themselves produce selective pressure upon the bacterial colonies, generating new strains of bacteria capable of overcoming chemical annihilation by expressing multidrug resistance genes. The end result? Massive collateral damage: destruction of our largely probiotic-mediated innate and adaptive immune response to infection, chemical poisoning of the host, and the production of super germs within the bioreactor of the human alimentary canal. This is very similar to what happens with chemotherapy/radiotherapy cancer resistance, cancer expressing genes and behaviors that are pre-metazoan in quality, not unlike bacteria and bacterial colonies [see Paul Davies, Charles Lineweavers Metazoa 1.0: taping the genes of ancient ancestors]. The word humility comes from the word humus, or earth, and indeed, it is the earth which teaches us how to maintain our health. Take a recent study published in the Korean Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology titled, Anti-inflammatory and anti-superbacterial activity of polyphenols isolated from black raspberry, which found that the root of the black raspberry plant contains polyphenols which are lethal to methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii (CRAB), and Bacillus anthracis (Anthrax). The black raspberry fruit did not exhibit these properties. Why the root and not the fruit? The reason is that plants have actually designed their fruits to be eaten by specific species, and therefore are not as well armed against the same microbial threat that we humans also face interacting with the wild environment. Roots, on the other hand, are designed to enter directly into the soil, and derive nutrients directly through rhizomal interaction, which requires both a certain degree of permeability, and therefore extra chemical defenses. We discovered a similar process in the production of the defensive lectin compound in wheat known aswheat germ agglutinin (WGA) within the root tip and leaf tip of the sprouting wheat berry. WGA also has antibacterial, antifungal, anti-mammal, and yes, anti-animal/human properties as well. So, if the humble raspberry plant can produce antibacterial compounds capable of killing carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter, could it also kill the CDCs nightmare pathogen, carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae? Since both bacteria are members of the class Gammaproteobacteria in the phylum Proteobacteria, it is definitely possible. How many other natural, plant compounds are capable of this seemingly impossible feat of killing drug- and multi-drug resistant infections? The research on MRSA is encouraging. At GreenMedInfo.com we have indexed 49 natural compounds thus far with experimentally confirmed anti-MRSA properties, listed in alphabetical order below: You can view all of these study abstracts without registering at GreenMedInfo.coms MRSA research page. Other examples of so-called nightmare bacteria, which natural compounds have been found to kill, include: As you can see by these studies, Nature provides solutions that are often superior to results obtained by drugs and these are increasingly being confirmed by evidence-based medicine. Truly, the fact that we are alive here today is a direct result of pre-modern cultures, the world over, using used plant medicines to stay healthy. We can thank these ancient approaches using plant allies for disease prevention and treatment for us being here today. If we are to remain here, especially in face of an increasingly impotent and incompetent medical system, we may have to rediscover them once again. There are a wide range of chemistries (often over 1,000) working in concert within plants that were evolved in order to provide elaborate defense systems against the same pathogens that afflict humans. When used intelligently, with correct medical supervision, these natural compounds can literally be life-saving. I believe that we are on the precipice of a natural medical Renaissance, and that this transformation is occurring by sheer necessity as one drug after another fails to produce the expected outcome. Drug and multi-drug resistant diseases are a sign of this, a healing crisis if you will, which if properly understood and responded to, will result in us arriving at a much better place. 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