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Health Check: Ultra Tough Antibiotic

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2017/05/31 GMT

Ultra Tough Antibiotic

BBC World Service - Health Check, Ultra Tough Antibiotic

Re-engineering antibiotic vancomycin to avoid bacterial resistance

Ultra tough antibiotic; mercury pollution from gold mining; psychology of corruption, lymphodoema

After years of work a team at Scripps Research Institute in the US has re-engineered the antibiotic, vancomycin – which is used to treat conditions such as serious diarrhoea – so that bacteria can’t develop resistance to it. Claudia Hammond talked Dr Tim Jinks, Head of the Drug Resistant Infections Programme at the Wellcome Trust, to find out how much of an impact this clever finding could have in the fight against antibiotic resistance.


Mercury pollution from gold mining
Mercury pollution in Colombia’s environment is the third highest in the world due to its gold mining industry. BBC Reporter Natalio Cosoy travelled to Segovia in Colombia - the area in the country with the highest mercury contamination - to find out how using mercury for processing gold is impacting on the health of miners and the surrounding community. Natalio meets both miners and doctors to learn about the short and long term health effects of mercury poisoning. 

Psychology of corruption
We tend to think of the descent into corruption as a slippery slope where people do one small thing wrong and then gradually it gets more serious. But psychologists in the Netherlands have discovered that people are more likely to engage in corruption when there’s a big reward and a sudden opportunity, than to do it bit by bit. Nils Kobis from the University of Amsterdam explains his research.

Lymphoedema
Lymphoedema affects the lymphatic system, causing swelling and fluid retention. It is estimated to be as common as Alzheimer’s disease and effects approximately one in five women who are treated for breast cancer and yet, it is a condition that receives relatively little attention. Lymphoedema specialist, Professor Peter Mortimer and Gemma Levine, an author and photographer who has lived with the condition for some years, have come together and written a general guide to help those with the condition as well as helping medical practitioners to learn more about it.

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