New Drug Resistant Superbugs Found in Three States – What You Can Do to Protect Yourself

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From USA Today:

BOSTON (AP) — An infectious-disease nightmare is unfolding: A new gene that can turn many types of bacteria into superbugs resistant to nearly all antibiotics has sickened people in three states and is popping up all over the world, health officials reported Monday.

The U.S. cases and two others in Canada all involve people who had recently received medical care in India, where the problem is widespread. A British medical journal revealed the risk last month in an article describing dozens of cases in Britain in people who had gone to India for medical procedures.

How many deaths the gene may have caused is unknown; there is no central tracking of such cases. So far, the gene has mostly been found in bacteria that cause gut or urinary infections.

Scientists have long feared this — a very adaptable gene that hitches onto many types of common germs and confers broad drug resistance.

Researchers have been warning about drug resistant bugs like MRSA for years. NDM-1 has the potential to make the already deadly MRSA strains even harder to treat as well as making common infections deadly. Of course authorities are telling people to avoid using antibiotics but that’s a too little too late scenario. Keeping yourself as clean as possible (including irrigating and cleaning even minor wounds) is now a must.

On the herbal front there’s been studies suggesting green tea has the ability to boost the effectiveness of antibiotics and “photo-medicine” or light therapy has show great promise in treating infections. The theory there being that a device like this Light Relief, which uses infrared light to treat minor pain, may also inhibit or retard the growth of antibiotic resistant superbugs.

Honey also has been used extensively to treat infections and covering a wound with it will stop infection from setting in.

h/t N.T.A.

Bombshell! Market Volatility Makes Investors Nervous

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Who knew? From CNS News who blew the lid off this story:

Wild gyrations on Wall Street have made U.S investors leery of buying individual stocks and skeptical that the market is a fair place to park their money.

In an Associated Press-CNBC poll of investors, 61 percent said the market’s recent volatility has made them less confident about buying and selling individual stocks. And the majority of those surveyed — 55 percent — said the market is fair only to some investors.

The survey confirms that average investors have been growing more concerned about the stock market as a safe place to invest for retirement. And news about the market has been unsettling for ordinary investors of late: More than 60 percent of those surveyed said they had paid attention to news reports about swings in the stock market.

Perhaps as a result, investors have been moving their money away from stocks and into bonds, which are generally more conservative investments and less volatile.

Who could have predicted that kind of reaction to the market? Thank the gods the Associated Press and CNBC commissioned this poll to see if wild swings in the market would make investors more likely to put money in investments that seemed safer. Money well spent.

Also on CNS – Americans want easy access to their cash. I smell Pulitzer.

How to Set Up a Primitive Camp

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I am a big fan of historical trekker and living history enthusiast “Le Loup” who runs the excellent re-enactment blog A Woodsrunner’s Dairy. “Primitive” survival skills are something people should try to develop if they truly believe (as I do) that a collapse will mean an eventual return to a 19th century quality of life. Many people who plan on “bugging out” should also look into the skills taught by historical trekkers who are used to traveling light and without modern conveniences, and people bugging in may find themselves on the Long Hunt in the search for food where these skills will be useful.

Le Loup made this video of him setting up a woodsrunning camp using tools that our colonial ancestors would have been familiar with. He also has photos of the finished camp posted. A camp set up like this makes a fine spring/summer and maybe fall camp depending on where you live and requires very little material carried on your person.

Le Loup is using oil cloth for the shelter, which is not the same oil cloth you find on Amazon but the more authentic cotton duck coated with Linseed oil. I found good instructions for making oil cloth here if you’re so inclined. Since you’re not going for authenticity but survival you should use what you can find that’s affordable, durable and easy to pack.

While a flint and steel set up is nice, I recommend you carry several modern ignition sources with you, including plain old Bic lighters and wooden matches. A tinder box is an excellent idea that we can take from the past, though we would use different tinder than the woodsrunners of yore. You can buy modern tinder but frankly dryer lint makes nice tinder and you should be cleaning out your trap anyway. It burns fast so many people recommend combining it with other tinder, like a Vaseline soaked cotton ball which should be carried separately, of course. If you have a first aid kit (and you should) put a little Vaseline in it and you can eliminate the cotton balls by applying it to the lint giving it a much longer burn time.

I highly recommend the books Wildwood Wisdom and Nessmuk’s Woodcraft and Camping for people looking for references on traditional, low tech wilderness skills.