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Strep Bacteria Resistant to New Antibiotic
Aaron Rowe writes "MSNBC and The Lancet medical journal have reported that the new oxazolidinone antibiotic Zyvox is ineffective against some forms of Staphylococcus aureus."
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One should not take this development as a sign that bacteria are doing things they shouldn't be doing. It's a matter of natural selection- antibiotic applied to colony, most members die, some with resistance to the drug survive. It's the same process, simplified, that most likely gave rise to multicellular organisms, worms, fish, amphibians, corals, mammals, and ultimately humans. While it's certainly worth noting, it's not like it isn't expected. Life changes. Life evolves. Life moves on to new forms.
That said, it does disturb me. One would think that with multibillion dollar budgets pharmaceutical company researchers could have found a drug effective enough to delay this sort of resistance. It is essential that we find a way to control staphylococcus infections. This disease and others cause many deaths, and can make entering a hospital hazardous. I myself lost a good family friend when staph germs entered her body during heart surgery and simply overwhelmed her body. One of my friends has lost a good deal of his kidney function due to extensive scarring of his kidneys from a staph infection. (It would be wise to point out that recent examinations have revealed the presence of a new growing kidney, complete with ureter, that is forming from the cortex of one of his kidneys- possibly due to healing processes gone amuck).
Staph is a scourge of humanity, and it must be fought. Otherwise, what other suffering will take place?
There was a study of rats that were raised in anaseptically clean environments, and lo and behold, their immune systems bairly developed. Perhaps it would be wise to let your children overcome an infection or two on their own, rather than attempt to fix it via antibiotics every time.
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Looking through my roomate's things, I find:
* Anti-bacterial deoderant
* Anti-bacterial shower soap bar
* Anti-bacterial toothpaste
* Anti-bacterial mouthwash
* Anti-bacterial liquid hand soap
* Anti-bacterial hand lotion (why?!)
Of course, what exactly is the anti-bacterial agent in these products? Is it a true antibiotic, or simply some kind of cell-killing agent like bleach?
I doubt that the super-expensive "magic bullet" antibiotics that we're afraid of germs getting immune to aren't in these products, so they're really contributing to adapted bacteria. Or so I'd guess.
Usually, it is triclosan.
You know, I'd always thought it was similar to phenols (Remember Dr. Lister's "carbolic acid" [Phenol] antiseptic?), but it appears that triclosan interferes with an enzyme that bacteria use to form their cell walls. I don't know if it's the same thing that Penicillin-related compounds interfere with for the same purpose, though it does imply that bacteria may become resistant to it. It appears that triclosan, like a lot of antibiotics, can activate a "pump" that expels antibiotics from bacteria before they can do damage.
Poking around on Google also brought up an interesting article however, which pointed out that the "resistance" that triclosan induces is ALSO triggered by an awful lot of off the shelf foods from grocery stores...though on the other hand, I don't recall rubbing cinnamon or mustard on my hands like antibacterial soap, either...
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I'm way ahead of you. I have, in my possession, a two part nanotechnological design for exactly this. The first nanite is relatively simple, it's a "Y"-shaped machine with "grabbers" tuned to match parts of bacteria and viruses, and one end that's recognized by a larger, more complex nanite that spots the first nanite, and is triggered to destroy the invader by surrounding it and attacking it with a burst of oxidizing chemicals.
I'm not kidding - I've been testing this system for years, and I can report that it works very well...
(see any "Immunology" textbook for further details)...
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I'm afraid you are confusing the terms "anti-bacterial" and "antibiotic." Anti-bacterial is a very broad, vague term that can be applied to any substance or product that exhibits the ability to kill bacteria. It is a marketing buzzword, used to play on the consumer's fear of microbes and misunderstanding of microbiology. Rubbing alcohol, vinegar, and boiling water would all easily fit under the anti-bacterial label.
The products that you list - anti-bacterial cosmetics and soaps - kill microbes due to very high or low pH, alcohol content, the presence of detergents that lyse cell walls/membranes, and the presence of other toxic chemicals that kill a broad spectrum of organisms in a very general way - the same way bleach kills just about anything you dump it on.
But bleach, alcohol, detergents, etc, are NOT antibiotics. Antibiotics are drug-like compounds that kill bacteria in a targeted fashion, by interfering with growth, cell wall development, and/or metabolic pathways. Antibiotics bind to specific enzymes, proteins, or other structural molecules. Bacteria are able to gain resistance to antibiotics by accumulating changes in the structure of these molecules (via mutations).
So, nonspecific general anti-bacterial compounds, and NOT antibiotics, are present in these cosmetics and soaps. Microbes CANNOT easily develop resistance to nonspecific anti-bacterials. Thus, use of these anti-bacterial products has no effect on the evolution of antibiotic resistant strains of pathogens.
Interestingly, it should be noted that the formulation of many of these household anti-bacterial products is essentially identical to the forerunning "non-anti-bacterial" versions. All liquid hand soaps, for instance, are anti-bacterial to begin with. So the addition of the "anti-bacterial" buzzword on the bottle is just a marketing ploy.
The angel in the oatmeal.
No, not all antibiotics are the same, and I hope I didn't sound like I was saying that resistence to one particular drug or class of drugs meant resistance to all of them. However, as the effectiveness of the drug used in these products declines, it will be replaced by one that still works.
...bronchitis.
Yes, over-prescribing is a huge deal. I realize I made it sound like it's largely antibiotic deoderant, my bad. I was just trying to get across that it's up to *us* to turn down antibiotics unless neccesary.
The real danger is over prescribing of effective antibiotics in unnecessary cases. How many times have you taken antibiotics for a cold? for the flu?
My mom is one of those people are generally try to avoid prescriptions, antibiotics and generally any drug unless the doc says that it's quite needed. It's a somewhat irrational fear, but grounded in fact. I've personally never taken antibiotics for a cold, flu, or brochitis (only had it once).
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Let's not overlook the most common use of anitbiotics in the US: Feed supplements for live stock. To get an idea of exactly why, look into the system of feedlots as described in _Fast_Food_Nation_. There's some other recent works in the NY Times critical of the beef industry worth reading. The short of it is that because we're raising cattle so contrary to how they evolved, the majority of cattle are susecptible to infections that they never used to get. To control this feedlot operators mix fairly alarming amounts of antibiotics into the feed they give the animals. Although no one's proven a conclusive link to livestock being fed antibiotics and the emergence of resistant bacteria, outfits like the CDC are very worried about the situation. Now I'm not a PETA type, but this alone makes me revaluate my eating habits in terms their long range affects. BTW, I picked up some free range beef recently, and man was that some good stuff. Alternatives exist even if they are more expensive.
staph is mostly known for surgical infections, staph is the major cause of post-surgical infections and deaths in the US, particularly Staph. areus. oft you may hear of Methicillin-Resistant Staph. Areus (MRSA) in which vanco/zyvox are considered the only therapeutic alternatives (to nafcillin & broad-spectrum B-lactams), although there are always exceptions to the rule Staph is known primarily for wound-infections...
Strep. Streptococcus is the cause of some wound infections such as the infamous necrotizing fascitis ('flesh-eating bacteria'), but it is mostly known for pneumonia (henceforth the name 'strep pneumo'), and 'strep throat' (group B beta-hemolytic strep (if memory serves me correctly)).
there are generally more alternatives for treating strep than there are for staph, clinically. strep is more sensitive to almost all cephalosporins (or at least used to be), macrolides, and a plethora of other abx that staph is not.
(since i saw this on another post, but am too lazy to make another reply, i'll just add) contrary to some peoples' beliefs most of these infections do not resolve very well on their own, which is much the reason infectious disease was the #1 killer 100 years ago, but is near the bottom of the list today. sure strep throat might eventually be 'fought off' but your chances of phyelonephritis or glomereulonephritis (renal infection) are high enough that you'd probably opt for the abx instead of risking it. if you have a Staph. A infection chances are it's from getting knifed, operated on, or otherwise had your skin broken and your tissue innoculated with its resident bacteria. if this is the case you will _not_ get better by yourself, nor are your chances of 'fighting it off' good enough for anyone to expect you to survive. while it is shown that your body requires immune challenge to maintain its ability to ward off disease, you don't seem me opting for an Ebola innoculation to keep my immunity robust.
-tid242
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That's pretty much how it works. However, many species of bacteria can exchange DNA with other species of bacteria. This means that many strains of bacteria get their first resistant variant without having to go through all the trouble of random mutation by swapping with other kinds of bacteria and then surviving while their peers die.
Both are slightly technical, but can be skimmed over without missing too much detail.
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