While pounding away on my gym’s treadmill last night, a ridiculous number of TV screens staring at me from across the room, my eyes fixed on Lou Dobbs’ show. The TV’s sound was turned off and it showed closed-captioning in addition to CNN’s graphics. I was instantly struck by a mismatch between the phrases “antibiotic resistance” in the closed captioning and “killer virus” in the lower third. As just about everyone knows, viruses are antibiotic-resistant to begin with.
Sure enough, when I got home and looked at the transcript (unfortunately CNN doesn’t make video clips available) I discovered that the segment was about an antibiotic-resistant strain of clostridium difficile, a gut bacterium that can cause severe infection of the colon when the other gut bacteria that keep it in check are wiped out by antibiotics. It’s definitely NOT a virus.
This was probably just a gaff on the part of Dobbs’ art department but one that he should be sure to correct in this evening’s broadcast…and probably won’t
