Later that night, after we had returned to the house, one of my aunts announced herself satisfied. No Indian wedding was complete without a good fight and someone almost dying. Brother Goon wrapped an arm around my shoulders. He’d checked out my story and decided I was telling the truth.
“You don’t need to worry,” he assured. “Not now.” He meant he wasn’t going to kill me. I attempted a smile.As a matter of course, a clinician will typically prescribe a drug to treat a patient’s suspected infection but only receives definitive lab results confirming whether the clinician’s best guess was correct a day or two after the patient started taking the drugs. That delay causes patients to take too many unnecessary antibiotics and inches us ever closer to a world where essential treatments are no longer effective.
The new approach, one of several rapid-testing methods currently in the works from various research teams, hinges on two significant advances in lab technology: The first is the immobilization of single bacterial cells—fixing them in place to get a clear image without harming the cells. The second is the development of a microfluidic chip that better emulates the necessary environment in which certain bacteria can thrive and allows researchers to take high-resolution images of single cells. These innovations allow experts to gauge whether a sample is resistant or susceptible to drug treatment because specialists can scour images of those cells for specific changes in their structure.
For this study, the Korean research team tested strains of Escherichia coli,Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Staphylococcus aureus andEnterococcus spp. against various antibiotic exposures and were able to discern in a few short hours which strains would respond to drugs. “The ability to rapidly diagnose antibiotic resistance would be huge, and indeed if we develop a system to do this quickly and effectively, it really could be a game changer for antibiotic use,” says Arjun Srinivasan, associate director for Healthcare-Associated Infection Prevention Programs at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The new method may not work with every bacterial strain, the authors warn, so the morphological patterns of each new strain would need to be carefully scrutinized before use. But better tracking of antibiotic resistance and stricter prevention methods would be key tools to help thwart the growth of antibiotic resistance. Indeed, previous studies have found that improper prescribing is a significant driver of antibiotic resistance. Such resistance occurs naturally over time but overuse of drugs speeds up the process by adding extra selective pressure.
For all the promise of this and other tests that aim to speed up diagnosis, this technology will not be showing up in hospitals and clinics anytime soon because it requires tools that far exceed the capabilities of those found in a typical lab and significant financial investment. “This is not a test that labs can start doing tomorrow,” Levy says. “It’s much more elaborate than most laboratories would want to be.”
I carried my bedding upstairs to the kitchen. The single entrance offered a defensive position should Brother Goon hear something different. Downstairs, idiotic talk of hit men continued and I was glad when Mom appeared and brewed us a pot of tea to calm our nerves. “These are dirty people,” she said. “Know nothing types. All this fuss over nothing.” I was relieved she didn’t share the wider bigotry against the victims.
As we drank the tea, the cries of the moaning women filtered up through the house. They had been chased out of the ballroom and followed us home where they took up with renewed vigor their caterwauling and hair-tearing vigil. “They’ll be like this all night, screaming and shouting and all for nothing,” Mom said. I thought of the young girl whose beauty had helped set these events in motion. “He’ll never let her out of his sight now,” Mom said, talking about Bhangra Uncle, “not for a second!”
The shock was still ringing through my body when Mom’s voice changed. There was something she hadn’t told me, she said. I looked at her in confusion, “What is it?”Like any reporter, I decided to ask. The man I asked was the stripe-shirted one who’d been overseeing the stand where I’d spotted the painting. First I asked him why he wasn’t behind the fence like the painter. He replied that he’d found the Lord, was reformed, and therefore no longer considered a threat by Angola authorities. I took him at his word. But what did the painter do that he has to be confined like that? The prisoner looked down at his shoes, back at me, and dropped the fact: That man’s a multiple rapist.
I felt dizzy. I asked him to excuse me for a minute, and I walked toward a far corner to lean against a wall. I remember folding my body in half, looking at my knees as blood rushed to my head. What am I doing here? I lifted my head to survey my surroundings. Again I was stunned by the mundanity of the scene. Shopping crowds, shining sun. Yet I felt sick. Why would I buy a painting from a rapist, engage in business with him? And what would it mean to have the fruit of that transaction nailed to my wall? Would it somehow glorify what he’d done? I considered not buying it, and that thought steadied me.
But how strange that the work of such a man even appealed to me. In fact, I felt drawn to the painting’s warm colors, its evocation of lazy summer. Then I began to wonder what it would accomplish to not buy the painting. Would leaving it behind constitute some sort of protest? Hardly. What I did with the painting now would change nothing about the past. And anyway, wasn’t the art separate from the man? Hadn’t I overlooked the corrupt (or allegedly corrupt) personal lives of many artists over the years in favor of appreciating their work? Roman Polanski, Woody Allen, Ezra Pound, to name a few. Why not ignore this artist as well and simply enjoy the lovely image he had created?
So I bought it and hung it on my kitchen wall. For a few weeks, I’d look at the landscape while making breakfast and get a chill, wondering if I’d made a mistake. But after a while, I got used to it. Whole weeks would pass during which I’d hardly register the painting at all. It became just a blur on the periphery, a dark spot on the pastel wall.
Six years later,
Later that night, after we had returned to the house, one of my aunts announced herself satisfied. No Indian wedding was complete without a good fight and someone almost dying. Brother Goon wrapped an arm around my shoulders. He’d checked out my story and decided I was telling the truth.
“You don’t need to worry,” he assured. “Not now.” He meant he wasn’t going to kill me. I attempted a smile.As a matter of course, a clinician will typically prescribe a drug to treat a patient’s suspected infection but only receives definitive lab results confirming whether the clinician’s best guess was correct a day or two after the patient started taking the drugs. That delay causes patients to take too many unnecessary antibiotics and inches us ever closer to a world where essential treatments are no longer effective.
The new approach, one of several rapid-testing methods currently in the works from various research teams, hinges on two significant advances in lab technology: The first is the immobilization of single bacterial cells—fixing them in place to get a clear image without harming the cells. The second is the development of a microfluidic chip that better emulates the necessary environment in which certain bacteria can thrive and allows researchers to take high-resolution images of single cells. These innovations allow experts to gauge whether a sample is resistant or susceptible to drug treatment because specialists can scour images of those cells for specific changes in their structure.
For this study, the Korean research team tested strains of Escherichia coli,Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Staphylococcus aureus andEnterococcus spp. against various antibiotic exposures and were able to discern in a few short hours which strains would respond to drugs. “The ability to rapidly diagnose antibiotic resistance would be huge, and indeed if we develop a system to do this quickly and effectively, it really could be a game changer for antibiotic use,” says Arjun Srinivasan, associate director for Healthcare-Associated Infection Prevention Programs at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The new method may not work with every bacterial strain, the authors warn, so the morphological patterns of each new strain would need to be carefully scrutinized before use. But better tracking of antibiotic resistance and stricter prevention methods would be key tools to help thwart the growth of antibiotic resistance. Indeed, previous studies have found that improper prescribing is a significant driver of antibiotic resistance. Such resistance occurs naturally over time but overuse of drugs speeds up the process by adding extra selective pressure.
For all the promise of this and other tests that aim to speed up diagnosis, this technology will not be showing up in hospitals and clinics anytime soon because it requires tools that far exceed the capabilities of those found in a typical lab and significant financial investment. “This is not a test that labs can start doing tomorrow,” Levy says. “It’s much more elaborate than most laboratories would want to be.”
I carried my bedding upstairs to the kitchen. The single entrance offered a defensive position should Brother Goon hear something different. Downstairs, idiotic talk of hit men continued and I was glad when Mom appeared and brewed us a pot of tea to calm our nerves. “These are dirty people,” she said. “Know nothing types. All this fuss over nothing.” I was relieved she didn’t share the wider bigotry against the victims.
As we drank the tea, the cries of the moaning women filtered up through the house. They had been chased out of the ballroom and followed us home where they took up with renewed vigor their caterwauling and hair-tearing vigil. “They’ll be like this all night, screaming and shouting and all for nothing,” Mom said. I thought of the young girl whose beauty had helped set these events in motion. “He’ll never let her out of his sight now,” Mom said, talking about Bhangra Uncle, “not for a second!”
The shock was still ringing through my body when Mom’s voice changed. There was something she hadn’t told me, she said. I looked at her in confusion, “What is it?”Like any reporter, I decided to ask. The man I asked was the stripe-shirted one who’d been overseeing the stand where I’d spotted the painting. First I asked him why he wasn’t behind the fence like the painter. He replied that he’d found the Lord, was reformed, and therefore no longer considered a threat by Angola authorities. I took him at his word. But what did the painter do that he has to be confined like that? The prisoner looked down at his shoes, back at me, and dropped the fact: That man’s a multiple rapist.
I felt dizzy. I asked him to excuse me for a minute, and I walked toward a far corner to lean against a wall. I remember folding my body in half, looking at my knees as blood rushed to my head. What am I doing here? I lifted my head to survey my surroundings. Again I was stunned by the mundanity of the scene. Shopping crowds, shining sun. Yet I felt sick. Why would I buy a painting from a rapist, engage in business with him? And what would it mean to have the fruit of that transaction nailed to my wall? Would it somehow glorify what he’d done? I considered not buying it, and that thought steadied me.
But how strange that the work of such a man even appealed to me. In fact, I felt drawn to the painting’s warm colors, its evocation of lazy summer. Then I began to wonder what it would accomplish to not buy the painting. Would leaving it behind constitute some sort of protest? Hardly. What I did with the painting now would change nothing about the past. And anyway, wasn’t the art separate from the man? Hadn’t I overlooked the corrupt (or allegedly corrupt) personal lives of many artists over the years in favor of appreciating their work? Roman Polanski, Woody Allen, Ezra Pound, to name a few. Why not ignore this artist as well and simply enjoy the lovely image he had created?
So I bought it and hung it on my kitchen wall. For a few weeks, I’d look at the landscape while making breakfast and get a chill, wondering if I’d made a mistake. But after a while, I got used to it. Whole weeks would pass during which I’d hardly register the painting at all. It became just a blur on the periphery, a dark spot on the pastel wall.
Six years later,
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