Not as scary as it sounds. Acinetobacter is not easily transmissible. At the hospital where I work, patients with it are on contact isolation. However, aside from having it in their systems, acinetobacter doesn’t cause any symptoms in them. They don’t get it in their lungs, it doesn’t make their flesh rot, and I haven’t seen anyone get it in their brains. The infectious disease literature I’ve read says it does not spread to those who have good immune systems. I don’t dispute the sad fact that the soldier mentioned in the link died from this, but I don’t think it’s going to spread through hospitals and kill everyone.

As you say, Eleanore, there are many antibiotic-resistant bacteria in hospitals. Some of the old scary ones are now essentially ignored. Take MRSA (methycillin resistant staphylococcus aureua). It used to be that patients with MRSA (as opposed to susceptible staph) were put on “contact isolation.” That means nurses had to put on gowns before going into their rooms, they could not mix with other patients, they got intravenous infusions of a powerful but dangerous antibiotic named vancomycin… Now it’s like “Eh, they have MRSA. So what? Everybody does.” I hope they do that with VRE (vancomycin resistant enterococcus) because the Green Party part of me gets sick of wasting a dozen blue plastic gowns each shift to protect against a butt bug that causes NO symptoms.

You know, this story only goes to show that the old idea that war provides residual gains is totally Full of Sh$t.  Maybe once upon a time that was true, but these days it’s contributed to an approx. 9 trillion dollar national debt, a strongly divided and anxiety ridden citizenry, a sullied public face in the world community, and now drug resistent super bugs.  Hmm, anyone else think we’ve stayed far too long in the land of diminishing returns on this war thing?  Maybe we shouldn’t do it so much

This kind of bacteria will cover the whole country’s conscience when Bush/Cheney are still sitting in haughty manner at their damned thrones

“Army surgeons there repaired Gadsden’s cranium, removed his injured spleen, and pumped him full of broad-spectrum antibiotics to ward off infection”

Scary info—intensive antibiotics create resistant bacteria, unfortunately this has been an ongoing problem in all hospitals. 

2 million patients get health care associated infections each year
100,000 deaths from health care/hospital infections each year
$30 billion spent to treat health care/hospital infections each year