Anyone who has ever attended a class taught by Environmental and Occupational Health Professor Lance Price or seen him speak knows that he’s a human dynamo. As an internationally respected expert on antibiotic resistance who regularly publishes significant research, he is routinely tapped to participate in government panels and meetings held throughout the world. In recent months, Price’s observations on the perils posed by antibiotic resistance were published and aired in a wide array of prominent publications and radio broadcasts.
On National Public Radio’s On Point program, Price explained why the discovery of a new antibiotic-resistant “superbug” known as the "phantom menace" is a major threat to human health. He offered insight into how the phantom menace bacteria is spreading across the globe in food, animals, and people in an article in the Washington Post. He also talked about the why the scary new bug’s name is apt in a piece in Discovery News.
A troubling trend that Price commented on in the prestigious Nature science journal is the recent discovery that bacteria worldwide are sharing a gene which confers resistance to colistin, a 'last resort' antibiotic. Price helped establish why the spread of this antibiotic-resistance gene does not spell bacterial apocalypse — yet. In a piece on the same topic in New Scientist, Price observed that the gene had not yet been found in North America.
In Oprah Magazine, Price discussed his research linking E. coli found in food with the same bacteria in people suffering from urinary tract infections. "In some cases, the strains were nearly indistinguishable, strongly suggesting that the infections were foodborne," he observed.
Publications aimed at the business community quoting Price include Bloomberg Business in an article focused on the discovery in 19 countries of the gene that can confer resistance to colistin. "When you misuse antibiotics in food animal production, there are major potential risks to human health,” he said. Price also commented in Forbes blogs on the gene’s link to imported meat and why Congress’s decision to repeal labels indicating where meat comes from may hurt consumers. An article in the Washington Business Journal called the Antibiotic Resistance Action Center that Price directs at GW “a new weapon against drug-resistant superbugs.”
In another recent Washington Post article, Price commented on the importance of the big boost in congressional funding for fighting such antibiotic-resistant superbugs. He also provided an important observation about rising sales of drugs intended for use in food animals (a use that his research has linked to the rising incidence of superbugs) in the New York Times. This rising use of antibiotics was also the subject of a National Geographic blog quoting Price. It was one of a series of recent National Geographic blogs in featuring Price’s observations.
In another National Geographic blog, Price expressed optimism that the realization of how agricultural overuse is endangering the colistin antibiotic might be enough to create change. “Let’s draw a line [and] use this realization to face what’s going on,” Price urged, offering a series of suggestions for how policies could be put in place could help preserve our last-chance antibiotics. “We need them,” he stressed.