Month: August 2019

Enlarge / A security guard mans the gate 23 January 2008 of the ward of extreme drug resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB), a near untreatable strain of the disease, at the Brooklyn Infectious Disease Hospital in Cape Town. The hospital is trying to take extra security measures to ensure patients with XDR stay there for treatment, instead of leaving to go back to their communities, still highly contagious. (credit: Getty | AFP)

The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday approved a new antibiotic that, when combined with two existing antibiotics, can tackle the most formidable and deadly forms of tuberculosis. The trio of drugs treats extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB), along with cases of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) that have proven unresponsive to other treatments.

Tuberculosis is the single leading infectious killer in the world, infecting an estimated 10 million people in 2017 and killing 1.6 million of them. XDR-TB and MDR-TB are even more savage forms of the disease, which is caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The drug-resistant strains of TB kill an estimated 60% and 40% of their victims, respectively.

MDR-TB strains can resist at least the two most powerful anti-TB drugs, isoniazid and rifampin. A strain gets into XDR-territory when they also become resistant to any fluoroquinolone drug, such as ciprofloxacin or levofloxacin, plus at least one of three injectable second-line drugs, which are amikacin, kanamycin, and capreomycin. Drug-resistant strains of tuberculosis infected an estimated 558,000 people in 2017.

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  Zim (left) and GIR have been hiding for years. But they're back. [credit: Netflix / Nickelodeon ]

Of all the cartoon series produced by Nickelodeon in its decades of operation, none could have been more unlikely than Invader Zim. Creator Jhonen Vasquez had previously achieved cult fame and notoriety for producing two of the most twisted comic series of the late '90s, Johnny The Homicidal Maniac and Squee, full of gallons of black-and-white blood and utterly evil characters. Yep, that's a perfect fit for one of the biggest children's networks of all time.

That the series aired for a full year on Nickelodeon, packed full of dark comedy and sneering satire of complacent mainstream culture, is as baffling now as it was then. But that surprise has nothing to do with the series' inherent preteen-friendliness. Above all, Invader Zim worked because its wiry alien fingers tapped directly into the nonconformist weirdo tendencies that lurk in growing children. It respected the instincts of preteens—and understood their equal desires to feel smugly superior to authority while also acting as immaturely as possible. This concept wrapped deftly around a universe where one alien had snuck onto the planet Earth—with the Vasquez twist that nobody other than the two main characters (the alien, Zim, and his Mulder-like rival, Dib) gave a damn.

This balanced juggling of topics—of maniacally cackling teen aliens, galactic-stakes battles over the universe, and bulbous creatures who both roll around in and vomit entire pizza pies—is not an easy thing to pull off. Thank the Almighty Tallest, then, that Invader Zim's return this week on Netflix is not a lazy cash-in on catch phrases or previous episodes. Invader Zim: Enter The Florpus may rank as Netflix's most impressive nostalgia rebirth to date.