"apostles of revolution" and the struggle in america and europe. john: if they could come back and he america today and see the most important play on broadway now and for the last several years, a play that lionize his alexander hamilton and vilifies jefferson and ignores payne and see the maldistribution of wealth in the united states and the amount of people that i effuses american politics today, they would see many of the things that no one in the united states today bore an uncanny resemblance to the england that they had revolted against. at 8:00 eastern on c-span's "q an "q&a."

>> "washington journal" continues. host: today in our spotlight on magazine segment, we will be talking with "wired" magazine contributor maryn mckenna about a superbug fungus and how experts are working to combat the spread of infection. maryn, good morning. guest: good morning. host: oh, great, you can hear me. startling off with a paragraph from your article. tell us a little bit about what this fungus is, and tell us about what is going on here. this is a story of a used, a fungus not behaving like a yeast, it is functioning like

a bacterium. that does not, and much of a difference, but it is a profound difference. as not beingeast anything that threatens us, but this youth is behaving like a superbug. it is resistant to the few drugs . yeast maryn, how is this different from things like mersa? guest: there are a bunch of ways in which it is both similar and different. we have talked a lot about antibiotic resistance, and goodness knows i know a lot about it, because i have written a lot o books about it.

or useveruse antibiotics them in the wrong way against bacteria, bacteria learn to protect themselves against antibiotics, and that is bacteria learning to defend were never but yeast supposed to behave in that way. ast do not move from person to person, they just hang out in our body and disrupt the ecosystem, other kinds of more profound used infections. oris, which was only discovered in 2009, is creating large outbreaks, just like bacterial bugs do. it is not spreading from one place to another but looming all over the world, and, like

bacteria, it is learning to defend itself against the drugs that we would use to kill it, and that is really a problem, , weuse unlike antibiotics have very few antifungal drugs. fungal diseases in humans have never really been a priority for medicines, so there have not been anywhere near as many drugs to develop. there are only three families of fungal infections. editor oris -- candida auris is showing a resistance. in other words, it is becoming untreatable. right in your story pathogen is moving rapidly across the world and public health experts are stymied on how to stop it o. where have we seen this candida

auris? has it been found in the united states? guest: the very first sighting it is japan in 2009, but now in 27 countries that medicine knows, and that is almost certainly an underestimate, because it is very hard to detect this particular yeast on a lab test literally used to detect these kinds of things. it is probably in a number of places, but the tests are not very good. it is certainly here in the united states. the cdc's most recent counts, there were more than 300, almost 350 cases of candida auris in various places in the united states. the cdc was so concerned about ine rising up and showing oup so many places, that a couple of years ago, it put out an alert,

before there were even any cases , was a veryd states uncharacteristic thing for the cdc to do. it is important to say that to this point, the people who are being made think enough to die from this are mostly people who are already bill in some manner. they may be in an intensive care unit. chemotherapy, they may have an organ transplant, they may have leukemia, they may be taking drugs to reduce their immune system. vulnerable.hem on ou but that also makes it one of the main reasons why this is so sick to combat. people this sick are usually in hospitals, and its introduction superbug is doing something that yeast are not usually doing, they usually

live on warm parts of our bodies, but this yeast has learned to live on the cool skin but also on, keyboards, countertops, doorknobs, which makes it extremely easy for this yeast to move from one person to the other people, health-care workers via equipment. that has never happened before. for a fungal infection. surprisedion of being and doubting what is going on is probably one of the things that has cap science from responding to this as rapidly as perhaps it probably should have. host: so how many people have died from this particular anderial yeast infection, are we seeing gus here in the united states, or have the

majority of the deaths been overseas? guest: there definitely the unitedeaths in states should i do not have the current numbers on my screen, but we can only say how many people have died if we had an accurate count of how many people have been sick of it and one of the major problems with combating this yeast is the test scores just are not very good. so someone may have a bizarre infection that the infectious disease specialist in the hospital they are in may look at it and say we do not recognize what this is, but whatever it is, it is not responding to drugs, and they send it to their microbiology laboratory, and the lab tests it for a number of bacteria and also for yeast and gets a negative on all of those. that is because this particular up, therebeen showing may be a number of illnesses and deaths out there that have been

identified as being caused by this yeast yet but still are being caused by candida auris, the superbug yeast. marynwe are talking with mckenna, author of "wired'" magazines peace on the case of the superbug used. if you're in the eastern time zone, we want you to: (202) 748-8000. if you're in the mountains or pacific time zone, we waited: (202) 748-8001 -- we want you to call in at (202) 748-8001. mean, what doe i cases of this yeast look like? what does it look? like when they see it in the hospital how do we know it is actual yeast and not something else? is a good question

here we know what fungal infections look like on people who have a more minor fungal infection. athletes foot, people who are unfortunate to get a youth infection in their mouth and throat, you can literally see the overgrowth that is kind of white or light and cottony and so forth. that is what happens is you get that kind of visible overgrowth. that is the signal to start with. in another signal is that if they detect this as being a tease, and they probably will think that it is some kind of because that's how does not do a particular good job of identifying this strain, itrogue will tell them it is a yeast, and they will try to drug that

is supposed to wipe out yeast. they will try to number one drug , and that one does not work, and then the number two drug, and that is not work. then they will try to number three drug, which is harsh and causes a lot of negative reaction. sometimes it gets called shake and bake. then they cal know for sure because they have yeast that is not responding. that is the most troubling aspect, not just that there is the issue where they do not know where it came from, and it is not just that the species is literally all over the world at once, we think it has done that in a very short period of time. when this yeast was identified, and the very first patient to know about it, which was in japan, an elderly lady in 2009, it was resistant to the three category of drugs that were

available. so right from the start, right from the very first patient, an alarm without that this is likely to be trouble because we see resistance right away. three typesre only of drugs, and this yeast issuing resistance to all three of them. ont: let's go to our mice. frank is calling for minneapolis, minnesota. frank, you are on the air. caller: my question is -- why do they keep the restaurants open thank you having those bugs? host: i am sure for it probably means what do they do in the hospital if they have a case of this? how they combated if the drugs are not working, or even in conjunction with the drugs? guest: this is something that medicine is just trying to figure out right now. pretty much throughout the antibiotic era, which goes back to the 1940's, we had a consistent pattern of relying on rather than things

-- y host: let's go to nicholas, who is calling from madisonville, kentucky. nicholas. caller: she answered most my questions, but i was wondering, can human beings build up resistance to superbugs on their own, with their own and uses them -- own immune system? and then can they derive what a antivenom type substance? when we will ask maryn get her back. we seem to be having technical difficulties. here is something you can see in her stories. "now there have been 340 cases reported in the united states, in 11 states, and the behavior

of the bug in this country is teaching microbiologists more about how the new yeast behaves." host: so this is one of the questions i had earlier about where in the united states this is been seen, and those of the states where we have seen the in the unitedtoda yeast states. we have maryn mckenna back. can you hear me?

guest: yes, i can't hear sorry about that. host: what was your question? build: can human beings up a resistance on their own, and can we derive antibiotics to fight them off? guest: well, that is a pretty interesting question. i do not think that would work for this particular case. there are, in the case of bacterial superbugs, there have been some research into what are the factors in our immune system that helps to protect us against infection, but that is pretty speculative research. one of the problems with superbugs, the bacterial and the research takes a long time to bring drugs to market. while that is an interesting idea, it is not something that will bring any practical benefit. host: what the income of we are talking with maryn mckenna from --red" who wrote the story

the strange case of the deadly superbug yeast. if you have questions we want you to call in. eastern (202) 748-8000 and central time zones, call in at (202) 748-8000. mountain in pacific time zones, (202) 748-8001. and you can reach us on twitter @cspanwj and on facebook at facebook.com/cspan. peggy is calling in. i am wondering about the superbug. i went to the hospital, and i had a urinary tract infection, and i had surgery in august of the year before. under mys, like, mold ummy, and it spread like

wildfire, and i was in there for six days on bagel myosin. they had an infectious disease doctor, there is only one for this will area that i live in other than going to rockford, chicago, and i was just in their recently, a couple of weeks ago, and it started as a fever. i am just wondering, because it'll be before, it was like a east infection on top of it, but thenever mentioned name that sh is mentioning, so i am wondering if i had this, because i have had is twice. guest: i am sorry to hear that you were so ill, and i'm happy that you are ok now. the drug that you mentioned,

mactramycin, is a drug against mrsa. it is not a drug against yeast. it is possible that you have several different things going on here if you are concerned about it, i would go back and again, and asrs specifically, is this candida u-r-i-s.- named auris because it was first found in an ear. there are some pages on the cdc specificallyare dedicated to candida auris during the testing is not as perfect as it could be with regard to this, they are asking people to contact them and asking doctors to contact them, so it is perfectly appropriate for your doctors to go to those pages and reach out to the cdc to get more advice on testing. way: maryn, is there any

for people to be able to tell on their own whether they have the superbug or not? i have another twitter user who is asking -- does the superbug fungus affect the middle year? ofapparently has some sort ear infection. is this something that can be determined at home? guest: no, there needs to be a health care professional involved, a clinical microbiology lab, the kind of love that they happening hospital. the reason is there are other yeasts that infect us. they just happen to be a lot less dire than this one. yeast as i mentioned, the was first found in the ear of a 70-year-old woman in japan. they discovered it was already resistance.

t. are being said, people who found with this, it is people who are already ill, so somebody in the hospital for other reasons. so it is unlikely that it is down on swoop somebody out of the clear blue sky who is already relatively healthy. a, who will like mrs affect a child on the playground or an athlete who are otherwise healthy. this affects people who have compromised immune systems. if people are concerned, the thing to do is always to talk to a doctor. this is not the kind of thing you can test were on your own. host: let's go to ralph who is calling from bethlehem, new hampshire. raph, you are on the air. caller: hi, thank you for giving us the information today. my question is on the tests themselves. use of the tests were not very good.

what if the probability of a false negative, and what is the probability of a false positive? what is the tests? please give us more description on that. guest: sure. i do not think i can quantify with the false negatives and people hav the false positives e -- published a very lengthy though seven in some manner struggle with identifying those particular species or not but they do not all kind of make the same mistake. each one have different problems in identifying it must of that multipage guidance, which is on the cdc's website, it is linked in the story we're talking about on the website of "wired" magazine, has guidance on which preferred or

not preferred, and what those people running the tests should have assumed whether they are getting solid results or not. host: again, this is our spotlight on magazine see spotlight and we're talking with maryn mckenna, wh wrote story "the strange and curious case of the deadly superbug yeast." you are on the air. caller: hi. i just want to let people know i for been i nurs several years, and i have had -- iinfections from taking have been a nurse for several years, and i have had yeast infections, and you can heal yourself at home, you just have to be patient. maryn, can you heal

yourself with this with natural methods? guest: i am completely in favor of people doing things that boost their immune systems that they feel comfortable with and them take care of themselves.it is a great thing to reinforce their wellness . but what we're talking about are not the kind of common east infections. this is something that occurs in a hospital and is deadly. drugsimmune to antifungal in order to beat back the infection, to make patients better to get this thing under control. i do nothing natural remedies are going to work for something like this. host: maryn, what are hospitals doing to make sure this infection does not spread between patients and doctors and nurses inside hospitals? is there any type of special pleading or sanitary that they have to use to prevent from one person to the next? guest: thank you for asking

that, because it is a really important part of the story. over the past decades, it is kind of like they have been fighting the last war. to washght us we had our hands. then there became the highly e, and it gut bug, cr thought that they had to clean surfaces in the hospitals and not just clean their hands. then the next laptop and maybe cleaning they have been doing is , because it may not clean this yeast. in english pretty much have to go back to relying on bleach.

in addition to putting people in isolation, making sure personnel strictly followed protocol. they had to go back to much harsher cleaning, which actually affects all the different surfaces in the hospital. they are just having to go back to very stringent, old-fashioned hygiene and understand that any kind of reliance they might have on using drugs to save us and maybe cutting corners on something, that is not going to work, precisely because the drugs don't work, and it may be that there are other things that have to be done as well. maybe we need much more precise tracking systems for patients, so we know where they have been. for instance, if the patient is in a hospital but was previously in a nursing home or have gone back and forth from a hospital to a long-term acute care facility, maybe we need to check every single patient before they go into the hospital to see if they are carrying this yeast. maybe anytime anyone is admitted

to the hospital, we have to take a very precise history of their travel and the trouble that their family has done, because so many of the cases in the united states seems to be related to strains that were imported from other country. there is a lot of skill that is going to have to be put into the operations of health care that we do not currently have, if we want to control us and keep it from spreading further. let's go to white plains, kentucky. good morning. can these be made in the laboratory by our government, possibly, or scientists, engineers the superbugs? guest: [laughs] go ahead and answer, maryn . guest: ok. this question comes up a lot when we talk about superbugs, mik this have been created in a

laght, a biological weapon, and a is intriguing and make great basis for a novel, i guess, but the reality is that the superbugs would not be something that would make a great biological weapon. they do not move that fast, they cannot make that many people sick, it would not particularly harmed the military readiness of a country to make people in the hospital sicker. the kind of organisms that are biological weapons are different categories than this. it is really important to keep the focus on this is killing people who might otherwise survive, people who are already very ill and a very people in be inals who ought not danger, and that is where we need to keep our focus. host: but so the campbell heights, maryland. you are on the air. caller: hello. my mother passed away in the hospital. my father passed away in the

hospital, and my older brother passed away in the hospital. mia.ink the cdc is in to piggyback on the other caller, you have a lot of bio diseases, andte militarized viruses to give to people because you have the elite that is obsessed with population control. one of their major priority is copperet rid of the indians that they call african-americans today, so this they this mouthpiece that put up here, her job is to buy to us. -- lie to us.

she is not going to tell us the truth. she is not going to be honest. she is a liar. host: maryn, what is your response? guest: i am incredibly submitted to that caller who had all of his family members die in hospitals. hospitals or were very sick people go. it is not uncommon for people to die in hospitals, but it is also very true that we in the united states and even in industrial countries around the world, we have a grill problem with hospital-transmitted infections that we are not doing enough on, and candida auris is just the most recent of them. there are a whole lot of things that we ought to be doing in health care to make, to reduce the transmission of hospital-associated infection. health care will tell you they do not necessarily have the funding or the reimbursement to do as much as they would like to do, so it is a persistent problem. people are dying and hospitals that ought not to die because of

superbug infections and other infections that are not as resistant, that are transmitted to the, and it is an enduring test for health care as a matter of fact. host: let's go to connie calling from florida. you are on the air. caller: i have a question for the guest. i am a woman in my 40's, and back in november, i became very suddenly ill. i had never had a problem with immune system issues or anything. i went to the university of florida here in gainesville, and they diagnose me after several days, they could not figure out what it was, but they said it with a catchall term of sepsis. i'm wondering what different things were linked to south africa, south asia, and south america. when i got sick, it was right after hurricane irma came through. i had never been through a hurricane before. i am wondering -- i have two

questions -- what is the potential relation between these gigantic weather systems coming from -- i know they originate off the coast of africa and generally kind of pick up winds all over the world and then carry them into the country, and also we have a very moist environment, florida is, and that is where yeast starts to grow. number two, i had a really bad experience here at the university of florida medical aller, because i am not at confident in the catchall diagnosis they gave me of sepsis. i am wondering if the university research labs that have these clinical microbiology labs how accurate are they actually pinpointing what is the blood infection? thank you. guest: i am really sorry to hear that you had sepsis, and i'm happy that you came out, because

sepsis is a killer, and there are public health campaigns going on to make health code personnel more aware of how dangerous sepsis is. i have written stories of working with families about their loved ones who have died of septic shock. so i am glad to hear that you are doing well now. i think the question that you asked about what is the role of really good catastrophic weather events and infectious disease i a fascinating one, and it is one that is just starting to get attention. the cdc is just starting to look at what might have occurred in houston after the flooding from the hurricane last year, what kind of mold diseases are occurring there. we know that plant diseases move on the wind between continents, and there's no reason to think that is also true. for pathogens that attack humans. but just as extreme weather events are getting more common,

it is just starting to look like a property for public health to investigate that extreme weather events carry diseases that we should be concerned about is what. host: we would like to think maryn mckenna, who wrote the "wired" story "the strange and curious case of the deadly superbug yeast." maryn, thanks for being with us this morning. guest: thanks for having me. next, we willp open up the phone lines where you can call in and talk about anything we talked about on the show today or any public policy you want to talk about. so stay tuned for that. now this week, "newsmakers" interviewed senator chris van chairs the chaired the senate democratic senatorial campaign committee. he discusses whether russia interfere in the elections. the clock isen:

taking. the senate has to act. it is a bipartisan bill, as you mentioned. i introduced it with senator rubio. what we know is all that the trump administration, national security official says that not only did russia interfere with the 2016 elections, but we expect them to interfere again in 2018, unless we do something. that is what the debtor act is created for, a penalty for clinton and russia, if they get caught again. i am optimistic. we will have hearings in the coming weeks on the senate foreign relations, senate senate committee, the committees with jurisdiction over this, and it is hard for anybody to say we should not take action now to protect the integrity of our democracy, and the only way to do that is to send a signal that there will be automatic tough penalties if we

catch russia, putin, or anybody else. >> why is it important now? why is the current or to retroactively apply sanctions for something they are actively doing make more sense than just imposing the sanctions? sen. van hollen: all of the testimony hear is if you want to do her behavior, what you do is set up a punishment that will happen if someone engages in that behavior. after thesomebody fact is like putting toothpaste back in the tube -- it is already out. establishant to do is very clear, tough penalties that will happen, because if i punish you after the fact that you have already interfere. so important to take this approach. >> "washington journal