More news is emerging about the dire new antibiotic resistance factor announced last month: MCR-1, a gene that disables the action of colistin, a very last-resort drug in human medicine. (If you’re just coming to this, my past posts are here and here.)

Quick recap: A gene conferring resistance to colistin was found in pigs, retail meat, and human patients in China; then it was spotted in Malaysia; then in Portugal. Then, in the next major development, researchers in Denmark announced they had identified the gene in one human patient and five samples of imported meat.

Here’s the newest news: The Danish researchers tell me that they have identified another patient who was infected with a bacterium bearing that