Superbug resistant to last-resort antibiotic found for the first time in U.S.

For the first time in the United States, a person has been diagnosed with a superbug that can't be treated by a last-ditch antibiotic.

As described in a study published Thursday in Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, a 49-year-old woman went to a military clinic in Pennsylvania with symptoms of a urinary tract infection, and when her sample was sent to a lab, it was determined the E. coli bacteria that caused her infection was resistant to colistin, an antibiotic used as a last resort. Bacteria can become resistant to antibiotics due to overuse of antibiotics in medicine and food production, and in April, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced one in three antibiotic prescriptions is unnecessary. "We risk being in a post-antibiotic world," CDC Director Thomas Frieden told USA Today. "The medicine cabinet is empty for some patients."

Doctors say this woman's diagnosis is noteworthy because she has not traveled outside of the United States. Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) have been working on legislation to make the approval of new antibiotics go faster, and in a statement, Bennet said the news out of Pennsylvania is "terrifying," adding, "we need new drugs to fight these antibiotic-resistant bacteria that pose serious and unique challenges to health care professionals."

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Update 1:15 p.m.: The U.S. has seen its first case of bacteria resistant to a last-resort antibiotic — not, as it had previously been reported, to all antibiotics. This post has been updated to reflect the change.