英语词汇学习题集8.docVIP

Articles: A Basic Quiz 窗体顶端 Cold Comfortby Michael Castlemanfrom Mother Jones Magazine, March/April 1998; reprinted with permission.Not so long ago, many of us resisted separating glass, cans, and paper out of our garbage. What hassle. Today, of course, every second-grader knows that worlds resources are limited and that recycling helps preserve them. We act locally, while thinking globally. Its time to bring same consciousness to health care as we face growing medical crisis: loss of antibiotic effectiveness against common bacterial illnesses. By personally refusing -- or not demanding -- antibiotics for viral illnesses they wont cure, we can each take step toward prolonging overall antibiotic effectiveness. Media reports have likely made you aware of this problem, but they have neglected implications. Your brother catches cold that turns into sinus infection. His doctor treats him with antibiotics, but bacteria are resistant to all of them. The infection enters his bloodstream -- a condition known as septicemia -- and few days later, your brother dies. (Septicemia is what killed Muppets creator Jim Henson a few years ago.) Or instead of cold, he has infected cut that wont heal, or any other common bacterial disease, such as ear or prostate infection. Far-fetched? Its not. antibiotics crisis is real. Consider Streptococcus pneumoniae: This common bacterium often causes post-flu pneumonia. (Pneumonia and influenza combined are countrys sixth leading cause of death, killing 82,500 Americans in 1996.) Before 1980, less than 1 percent of S. pneumoniae samples showed any resistance to penicillin. As of last May, researchers at Naval Medical Center in San Diego discovered that 22 percent of S. pneumoniae samples were highly resistant to it, with another 15 percent moderately so. And most recent statistics from Sentry Antimicrobial Surveillance Program, which monitors bacterial resistance at 70 medical centers in U.S., Canada, Europe, and South America, show that