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The Most Dangerous Bacteria
An anonymous reader writes "Forbes has a story listing the six most dangerous bacteria (one's actually a fungus, but it kills people who get it half the time) that have afflicted athletes, soldiers, and hospital patients. Some scientists worry that even with a bunch of new antibiotics hitting the market, there still aren't enough and they want legislation to make it easier for companies to develop them."
There is absolute no flamebait intelligent design talk in the article or the summary. Is this Slashdot?
Here's one which shouldve been on the list: syphilis :P
Viable Slashdot alternatives: https://pipedot.org/ and http://soylentnews.org/
As I am a ICU doctor, I see these guys more often that I want.
The problem is that the drug companies don't make much money from antibotics. They have high production costs and are used infrequently...
While hypertension and anti-cholesterol medicines are used by almost everyone if they live long enough.
At least that's the theory why drug companies spend so much less money creating antibotics than other meds.
See the problem is, you can develop 20 different types of medicine to combat different types of bacteria / germs / viruses but they will simply continue to evolve. It's life, all these things have to find some way to keep on going, just like we do.
Like copyrighting the antibiotics? Or forcing medical research to be available for competitors? Or budgeting more state money for research?
It's like a cult up here at work. They all are ADDICTED to the antibacterial gel! It's a sickness I tells ya!
Free The Lapland Six!!!
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antibiotics you attempt to mimimize usage and new antibiotics would be 'last resort' so the profitability of antibiotics is very low. The market incentives just don't exist for them like they do for mass market repeat customer products like viagra.
Antibiotics are more suited for government and non profit development.
LetterRip
Recently, the British version of the American Medical Association (AMA) recommended that Doctors stop wearing ties and those spiffy white lab coats.
:major: image thing and that patients respond much more favorably to it than normal clothes.
They said that since guys rarely wash their ties, they end up carrying around bugs, ditto for labcoats. The article I read specifically mentioned MRSA*, which is one of the 6 "scary" bugs TFA mentions.
I told this to my doctor and they said that the white lab coats is a
*Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus
AKA 'Staph'
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
He spells out how bacteria acquire their antibiotic resistance: The runoff of tainted feedlot manure, containing millions of pounds of diluted antibiotics, enters rivers and watersheds where the world's free bacteria dwell. In cities, municipal sewage systems are giant petri-dishes of diluted antibiotics and human-dwelling bacteria. Bacteria are restless. They will try again, every twenty minutes. And they never sleep.
If you haven't read it already, click the link - it is well worth it. It still scares the hell out of me, and it looks like his dark vision is coming true...
"I will take the Ring," he said, "though I do not know the way."
The hand santizing gels (I suspect you are thinking about these) are alcohol based and anti-septic. I don't think we'll see too many alcohol resitant microbes unless they start doing something really cool with their cell walls. Anti-bacterial soap on the other hand.... -C
1) Not all that long ago (1970s?) some people thought that we might be at a point where antibiotics would eradicate infections thus new antibiotic research slowed down accordingly. That slowed down new antibiotics coming to the market for a while, thankfully that is abating if not totally gone.
2) We're encountering new and deadly diseases as we increase trade globally, it is inevitable that some will be very dangerous and exotic.
3) Each new bug has to be researched and targeted, remember that the average drug patent is about 17 years (last I checked) and most of the projects don't become commercially viable.
4) I study/train in a public hospital. Knowledge is the best weapon you have and a cool head armed with knowledge of the disease (and the right protective/isolation equipment for provider and patient alike) goes a long way.
5) Panic of disease can kill far more people and disrupt trade in much greater amounts than the disease itself. How many people did SARS kill versus the trade and media disruption it caused?
As long as there is a Second Amendment, there will always be a First Amendment.
I forget the original writer, but loosely paraphrased, the bad guys (of whom there are hordes) have all day to pick at your system, while you (collective, but smaller number) work 9 to 5 to keep them out.
Something that breeds in the millions to billions every 20 minutes is hard to fight with a research program that takes years between tries.
My money's on the bugs.
the more accurate the calculations became, the more the concepts tended to vanish into thin air. R. S. Mulliken
I'm a mycologist and study fungi that infect plants (not animals). I, however, am extremely familiar with Aspergillus. People don't realize that fungi such as this Aspergillus, and the less harmful and closely related Penecillium, are extremely common in our environment. You breath in spores of these things by the thousands each day! They are also the scurge of introductory plant pathology and microbiology courses everywhere because they contaminate everything.
Fungal infections in people are nasty. They can progress quickly and have awful symptoms. The problem with these infections, in comparison to bacteria, is that our two Kingdoms are relatively closely related. The chemicals that affect fungal growth, for example, often negatively us as well and have multiple side effects.
They prescribe them for virus infections which antibiotics have no effect on. They only prescribe oral antibiotics even though that is the most inefficient way of getting them into your bloodstream and has the most hazardous side effects (it screws up your gut flora) just because injection is more hazardous to the doctor's liability insurance. It sucks to know that as a patient, you're further down the list of concerns than medical liability.
Azithromycin resistant Streptococcus Pnumonae.
Out of spite for Forbes, here's the list (yeah yeah, you can click slower/faster/stop)...
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA)
Drug-resistant "staph" causes 102,000 hospital infections a year, more than any other. For sick patients, it can be a killer. Recently, S. aureus has escaped the hospital. The number of children infected jumped 28% in three years. Now, athletes are being infected. In 2003, five football players on the St. Louis Rams suffered staph-infected turf burns that resisted multiple antibiotics.
Escheria coli and Klebsiella
These bacteria, a major cause of urinary tract, gastrointestinal and wound infections, are quickly becoming resistant to existing drugs. Half of Klebsiella, for instance, were found to be resistant to Cipro in a recent study. More worrisome, two experimental drugs being tested against these bacteria are in the same class as drugs to which the bugs are already resistant.
Acinetobacter baumannii
This drug is perhaps most well known for its presence in troops returning from Iraq, where it has infected dozens of patients and spread to others inside hospitals. It is also an increasingly common cause of pneumonia, now accounting for 7% of hospital-acquired cases. There are few existing drugs to treat it, and no medicines in development targeted at this bug.
Aspergillis
Cancer patients, transplant patients and others with weak immune systems are at risk of being infected with this fungus. Once it gets loose in the bloodstream, aspergillis kills 50% of the time or more--and that's with the best new antifungal drugs that have been developed in recent years. Experts complain that drug companies are choosing to test their medicines on other, easier-to-treat fungal infections.
Vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium (VRE)
VRE is a major cause of infection of the heart, brain and the abdomen. A recent survey of 494 U.S. hospitals found infections of 10% across all patient groups. Current drugs do not rapidly kill the bug, and only one is available as a pill.
Pseudomonas aeruginosa
This bug is better than most other bacteria at becoming resistant to new antibiotics. A third of P. aeruginosa were found to be resistant to drugs like Cipro and Levaquin in 2002. Patients with cystic fibrosis are at particular risk; antibiotics can keep them healthy, but once bacteria become resistant, they may need lung transplants.
Bacterial resistance? It's an exercise in futility: doctors are very careful in prescripting antibiotics unnecessarily, but as far as I know, animal feed is laced with antibiotics (makes them grow faster, and you get less disease in crowded conditions). The antibiotics used are related to the ones used in humans. All this resistance came not from antibiotics we use on ourselves, since it is dwarfed by those use for feeding pigs and chickens... Who to blame though? This is a classic case of the "tragedy of the commons" - if one doesn't use antibiotics for his/her farm, one's competitor will.
Hey, there's a fungus among us! /Thanks, I'll be here all week!
I acquired it while I was in the hospital in 2004 to have some more of my leg cut off (although the doctors said I might have colonised me outside of the hospital and gone active once they did the surgery, yeah right). The treatment for MRSA was eight weeks of IV Vancomycin and 1000mg of Cipro every day. Now Vancomycin is nasty, nasty stuff, it's pH is so low that it will kill any veins you have it injected into, so you have to deliver it through a central line. It can also cause liver and hearing damage, so if you're on it for any length of time you have to get your liver enzymes tested and your hearing check. It's the next best thing to being on chemo. Cipro is no fun either and it's really fucking scary that there are bacteria that are resistant to these because these drugs, due to their side effects, are the anti-biotics of last resort, anything stronger would probably kill you outright instead of just damaging your liver and hearing.
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
This is the type of article that I hate. It is pure scare tactics in a not even veiled attempt to push a political agenda for big pharmacheutical companies - be afriad! Resistent bacteria are on the rise! We need leglistation that makes it easier for big pharm to make money!
Heres the catch 22 - there are bugs resistent to the drugs we currently have because of overuse of those drugs, so what we need is more new drugs to combat these? obviously they just become resistent to these drugs as well! Therefore the answer is definately not legislation to encourage more drugs, as the article would suggest, but rather it is likely better and more cautious use of drugs and the encouragement of building resistances.
Politically motivated corporatate garbage, thats what this article is.
-- "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains." Jean Jacques Rousseau
I get the impression that they're often used as placebos during flu season.
During flu season?!
...please: This is the big issue here, that the food conglomerates and pharma industry doesn't want to talk about.
More antibiotics is what is getting us into this mess in the first place. Seriously, people get a simple cold and run to their doctor to get a prescription; Mothers run around their house disinfecting everything with wipes and sprays. Parents medicate their children every chance they get. How long until our immune systems aren't worth sh*t anymore because we never get exposed to the little bugs in the first place until it's too late, and how long until we have a pandemic of a human-transmittable infection that has grown immune to all known antibiotics because everybody is pumped full of them all the time?
Here's a thought. If things get really nasty and these bugs get out of hand, perhaps we will see a "war on bacteria". Imagine what our best and brightest could do with a few hundred billion dollars for antibiotic research?
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It might also help if every product out there wasn't antibacterial in some way; it's just not generally necessary for every cleaning product you use to have antibiotics in them. It's actually hard to find handsoap nowadays that _isn't_ antibacterial.
What about the people who get it all the time? Do they die too?
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
quality writing in journalism - the first line...
"Athletes with infected scrapes that won't go away."
"Dammit, man, get out of my *house*! And take that nasty scrape with you!"
'This writing business. Pencils and what-not. Over-rated if you ask me. Silly stuff. Nothing in it' - Eeyore
What's more dangerous? A disease that kills half the people it infects, that infects a hundred people a year, or a disease that kills one in 10,000, that infects half a million people a year?
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Bacteria, Fungi and Viruses. They EVOLVE. No drug will remain effective against them forever. There is a remote possiblity of exterminating some species (though honestly I dont think its possible), but even if you do take out a couple, its a drop in the bucket.
The more antibiotics you use, the germ populations get exposed to the antibiotics. You get better. But the few germs that survive are more likely to breed a resistant strain.
So your great-great-great-grand children could all end up dying from the flu. Maybe not the bird flu, maybe it will be martian-slinky-flu. Or maybe strep throat. Or Atheletes foot, etc.
For the long term (next few centuries), we will be a LOT better off, if companies dont invent and use up all of the antibiotic possibilities in the next hundred years. Cause once they are used up, we are going to have things a lot harder.
For the very very long term (next ten thousand years), there's really no chance of any drug remaining effective against the germs. We will use them all up. The only solution will be to evolve our own anti-germs. Either by trying to use genetics, or just by letting natual germs breed their own defenses against competing germs, and then stealing that defense for our own purposes.
Isn't this natures way of sorting out the weak. Fuck'em I say. If you don't have a good immune system you shouldn't be walking the planet.
Intelligent Design THIS!
Thanks, that slide show assumed that we are all extreme speed readers who don't like to look at pictures.
Fungus Among us!
Some scientists worry that even with a bunch of new antibiotics hitting the market, there still aren't enough and they want legislation to make it easier for companies to develop them."
Some scientists? Or some pharmaceutical company lobbyists?
. . . and by "legislation". . . I assume they mean "more government handouts, tax breaks, bogus tort-reform to free them from responsibility for adequate testing, and patent extensions"
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
It's not bacteria that scares me, it's the viruses. Not the wimpy computer kind, but the little-packet-of-protein-and-nucleic-acid kind. Potential for lethality of viruses put bacteria, fungi, and other microbes to shame.
Legislation isn't going to help all of these companies start producing antibiotics. There just isn't a huge financial incentive for these companies to do so, especially as more and more so-called "first line" antibiotics go generic and become cheaper. Look at this example: Doctor writes prescription for "Zithromax" antibiotic by Pfizer, cost from pharmacy approx $60, one time prescription. Doctor writes prescription for "Lipitor", cholesterol med from Pfizer, cost from pharmacy approx $130/month. This prescription will be taken INDEFINITELY!!! Granted other medicines will come along, and cheaper ones will take it's place, but you tell me where you would put your R & D money? It's the "lifetime" meds that are the money makers here. New laws aren't going to change that fact.
sig here
...Do like Canada has done: make drug companies marketing prescription drugs directly to the consumers illegal. As the advertising budget goes down, the R&D budget goes up. Simple!
Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul.
Aspergillis
Cancer patients, transplant patients and others with weak immune systems are at risk of being infected with this fungus...
As a leukemia patient, these kinds scare the shit out of me. Every once in a while my white blood cell count gets low as the Doc adjusts my dosages, and every time I just hold my breath and hope. Maybe I am overly sensitive, but reading things like this make me doubt that....
xao
http://TheHillforum.hopto.org
... when you read this article?
9.06 - The Death Of Eric Cartman episode
Linda (Butter's Mom): Butters, what on earth are you doing??
Butters: Well I think... I'm like the kid in that movie! I-I'm seeing dead people!
Linda: Dead people?
Stephen (Butter's Dad): Who's seeing dead people?
Butters: Me! I saw a ghost!
Stephen: Now, Butters, there's no such thing as ghosts.
Butters: But I saw him! Just as plain as I'm seein' you right now!
Stephen: Butters, these things happen all the time. You've got a very active little brain and your mind was just playing tricks on you.
Butters: Ruh, really?
Stephen: Yeess.
Butters: So... so it was just... it was... just my ima... magination then?
Stephen: That's right. There's no reason to be afraid of things that aren't real. There's plenty of real things to be scared of. Like super-AIDS.
Butters: Huh s-s-super-AIDS?
Stephen: That's right. A new form of AIDS which is resistant to drugs. Just one teaspoon of super-AIDS in your butt and you're dead in three years.
Butters: AAAH! [drops his flashlight] Oh Jesus.
Stephen: So now you feel better? Ghosts don't exist and there's nothing to be afraid of. Except the super-AIDS.
++Om
There are some older antibiotics that kill almost anything, including possibly you. Doctors have almost forgotten about some of these because they should only be used as a very last resort. If you read something that says something about germs that are resistent to every antiobiotic then you know that it isn't accurate.
when bacteria fail to understand that evolution is only a theory!
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
Pharma has a reflex that omits unprofitable data.Its like forcing a monkey to put togeather a jigsaw puzzle.If you cut,bend or make up new pieces, it will only cause problems in the future.Paper shredders should not be allowed within a 5 mile radios of any phara corp.
Like Routine Infant Circumcision. Why would you want to expose your child to any of these bugs without a good reason?
Some scientists worry that even with a bunch of new antibiotics hitting the market, there still aren't enough and they want legislation to make it easier for companies to develop them."...
Insert missing part of summary here:
"Will this evil genius, yet incompetent Bush administration have the guts to pass this legislation? Or will we all be dead in a decade because monkey boy doesn't believe these bacteria can evolve? Go Ralph Nader!"
Note to mods: I didn't write that. It actually was in the summary. Must have got edited out. Weird.
Let me add that farm animals are not only treated with antibiotics when they are sick. Antibiotics are used as prophylaxis. Best chances for bacteria to adapt. This is sick!
"Some scientists worry that even with a bunch of new antibiotics hitting the market, there still aren't enough and they want legislation to make it easier for companies to develop them."
then companies trying to use Linux or GPL software for the developement of any antibiotics risk the chance of cross contamination from a bacterial GPL licence!
That slide show is the most annoying UI I've come across in a long while. Idiots.
But the main point isn't what Forbes says, to develop more drugs to treat Drug Resistance.
A better point would be to take A Giant Rubber Mallet and Hit Up Side The Head anyone using anti-bacterial soaps, kleenex, sprays, cleaners, etc.
Just
Use
Soap
Seriously, this fad to use anti-bacterial soaps and cleansers:
a. does not work - many studies show that soap, by itself, works as well or better, and not even fancy soap at that, just basic soap
b. builds resistance to antibiotics
c. creates havoc in our streams and rivers as we flush them down our toilets, sinks, and shower/bathtubs
Now, if you want to talk Drug Resistance, I heard a fascinating seminar yesterday at the UW from Christopher Lee, on Mapping Evolutionary Pathways of HIV-1 Drug Resistance, presented by the Center for Computational Biology. He's got a website that has links to at least one of his papers. There he uses evolutionary pathways predictions of Ka/Ks to manipulate viral evolution in ways that you can either slow the drug resistance evolution or force it to evolve into a the equivalent of low-energy traps they have a hard time evolving out of.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Producing more antibiotics will, most likely, make it worse, in that people will use even more antibiotics in situations that don't call for it, forcing higher drug resistance evolution.
Just use soap - it works better than soap with antibiotics, is a lot cheaper, and cuts the spread of influenza and other nasty diseases by half.
That's what we do at the UW.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
We're just learning to fight back against them. What's the point of your post? Us to curl up and die and go back to the 45 year life expectancies we had a hundred years ago? No thanks.
.. and we're learning more and more how to defeat them in just the last 75 years. There are antibiotics that bacteria havent evolved resistance to. For example, "Pennicillin V" is still 100% effective against Strep. And it has been used against it for decades.
.. it's important to remember than we can study this and find ways to defeat it. As we has done in the past.
.. for example .. crime will supposedly always be here .. but why cant we can have a society where crime is very very low (compared to the 30's we have super low crime .. so it shows that crime can be reduced).
We're winning
So while it can replicate a billion times or whatever rapidly
Last I checked the bacteria human bodies effectively fought the bacteria for thousands of years (which is why we're here today). Without the help of drugs or knowledge of bacterial mechanisms. Now we may be able to drive some of the worst ones to extinction.
Besides, we dont need to be 100% effective
unless you call it a bacterium, then it goes on a killing rampage!
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Secondary infections are not all that common after influenza. They do happen, and I tell my patients to call or come back if they aren't making the expected progress but I DONT prescribe antibiotics "just because" somebody "might" get sicker.
It will take another half generation or so before the idea of getting antibiotics after every infection wanders away from people's minds. So far, I've been pleased with how many people have actually picked up on that, I'm having to dissuade fewer and fewer people from insisting on getting "something".
Of course, then the converse problem of getting them to take a "dangerous" antibiotic when they need it comes around to bite you.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
You broke something badly in that last sentence.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
I think that when antibiotics are given, multiple types must ALWAYS be given.
I am not sure if this is the situation today, but assuming multiple anti-biotics require multiple mutations for the bacteria to survive, then multiple antibiotic types should be used to make the antibiotics last longer.
If an antibiotics A requires a mutation with chance P(A) and an antibiotics B requires a mutation with chance P(B), then the combination requires a mutation with chance P(A)*P(B). Giving the antibiotic types separately results in a: MIN(P(A), P(B)) chance of the mutations occuring.
In other words, if we give people "the next" antibiotic type every time, we are "burning" the antibiotics much faster than if we give as many antibiotic types at the same time.
All this assuming different mutations are required to survive multiple antibiotic types.
Since I thought about this in a few minutes of my spare time, I assume that doctors/biology experts know this. My question is: Is this applied? Or is there something I am missing?
I work in pharma.
Odd they are spending billions developing new anti-infectives......
Think about the problem for one minute. Drugs which target, say hypertension always work for hypertension. You don't suddenly get a new type of hypertension develop in man which is resistant to the old hypertension drugs.
New infective agents are developing in nature all the time. So you have to constantly develop new anti-infectives.
In addition a new infective agent can appear overnight. It takes 10 years to a get a drug approved (to prove it a) works b) doesn't hurt you). And that is once you have discovered a drug which you think works.
And drug discovery.... Ho my god. This is basically a crap shot. You get some funky new compound and test it 10000's of different ways (some automated, most manual - Animals) until you notice something interesting.
Whose idea was it to implement a slide show that decides how long YOU get to have to read the text? As if the standard next button wouldn't have sufficed.
New laws aren't going to change that fact.
Take away the patents they worship that make them waste all their efforts on new patents for things that already have effective cures and I guarantee you that development priorities will change.
I think research might be better motivated by charitable institutions saying: "we offer $X reward to companies working on these problems, or as a prize to the one who can come up with the cure.
Charitable organizations are part of the free market too, and their operation in this domain is greatly hindered by patents.
Losing a patented cure that I and my children cannot afford anyway doesn't worry me in the slightest. Government monopolies are not free market.
We have the expertise! We just need the equipment and salaries. I am, of course, an academic researcher in biology. I don't personally have interest in anti-microbial research, but there are plenty of us Ph.Ds who do. The problem is, the only choices we have are to stay in academia, where product devlopment is nil, or go to industry, where the bottom line takes precedence over all else. I propose more funding to academic labs (and even national labs) specifically to develop antibiotics (and eventually many other pharmaceuticals). Currently, the big Pharmas take research that began at academic labs based on public funds and privatize it by taking some small step forward. I think this is a big scam for the public, who then has to pay up the wazoo to get any of the tangible benefits. If there were a program specifically to help academics take products to market via non-profits, I think real progress in healthcare could be made, even for these difficult-to-make-profitable antibiotics. But, it is difficult to overcome the Pharma lobby.
Hmm... Poultry feed typically (it's hard to buy unmedicated poultry feed, btw, because chickens and turkeys get cocci, and get screwed up by it, rather easily) has amprolium in it, to prevent coccidiosis. Ruminant feeds can have some amprolium or antibiotics to prevent "overeating disease" (onset by ruminants typically moving off of grass feed to grain, like when they get moved to a feedlot). I have a bottle of sulfamethiazine sodium (sulmet) sitting on my table here, which can be used in water supplies to help prevent cocci as well in poultry and ruminants.
The situations where drugs are added to concentrated grain products are typically where the animals are not going to be getting anything besides grain products for their primary nutrition: feedlots, confinement dairy, commercial poultry and pork. It's cost-prohibitive to really do it if one is a small producer.
Penicillin isn't used in feeds much anymore, because it's been outlawed in the US, iirc. Besides, not much point putting it in feed when most infections it was designed to treat are penicillin-resistant now.
Most of the fall lambs grown in the Willamette Valley, OR, are raised over the winter on annual rye grass fields. They get sheared, right about now, and get sent to slaughter w/o seeing a feedlot. But this is just one small area, and not typical of the rest of the country.
For most people, margins on livestock (despite recent good prices) are pretty low, and prophylacticly treating livestock through feed or water is too expensive.
Hint: If you can find grass-fed meat (poultry, lamb, beef), it might be worth trying out. Not good, though, if you're on a Wal-Mart budget, unfortunately... And buy it from the farmer if you can (locker meat).
So anyway, yeah I hate fungus.
sorry to drag another subject into this, but i have been claiming for years that the current system of drug development is wrong. in discussions about patents, I am getting sick of people always coming up with the example of the pharmaceutical industry as "proof" that patents are necessary. I would say, to the contrary.
the current pharmaceutical industry system (including patents) only serves to develop new drugs that aren't really needed (broadly spoken). IMHO it is not money that should dictate what drugs are necessary. the subject is just too important on a political level. it should be politics determining what happens (in the end, if all is well with the political system) the people. short term financial gain has no place in something this critical for society.
therefore I propose to abolish patents, to have states direct and take over control on drug development (universities, state funded research) and sometimes pay commercial companies to develop in contract (e.g. to organize clinical trials). without patents the work can be more efficiently organized: better cooperation, free exchange and use of information in order to reach results as fast as possible, let research groups read and use each others results as fast as possible and try to achieve optimal scientific results.
The rules for dairy cattle and beef cattle are very different. Most people aren't aware of the ban on antibiotics for dairy cattle or that it goes so far that companies that sell milk can't advertise the lack of antibiotics as a feature since everyone else has to do it too.
Beef cattle are very different. Farmers use antibiotics in them because it causes them to grow larger. This is widely considered to be a potential problem for helping to spread immunity to bacteria that can infect humans, but there aren't any good studies proving it one way or another that I'm aware of. If any studies did show up, expect a hard industry push for studies to "disprove" it and hard lobbying to stop any bills to restrict the practice.
For those who are willing to pay, organic beef does not have this problem. Most beef, though, does possess this problem.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
The FDA's regulations drive drug maker's costs: now $1B for a new drug reaching market.
Consequently, drug makers cannot affort to develop a drug with less than a $2B/year market.
Consequently, in the case of antibiotics, they can only develop broad-spectrum antibiotics, of which there are very few.
Consequently, as with these infections, we are dying from a lack of new drugs, not dangerous drugs.
There are 1000s of antibiotics in 100s of classes that are known to work against various types of bacteria. Further, with gene chips, the technology exists to precisely identify the susceptibilities of each bacterium wrt these 1000s of antibiotics.
There is no reason for anyone to die of an infection, except that the FDA's regulations make it un-economic for any entity to do any of this.
Ditto cancers (check out the reovirus and other virus cancers that can possibly cure 2/3rds of all cancers).
AIDS is a fine example: pressure groups forced the FDA to curtail safety testing, push a lot of drugs into clinical trials. A few people died as a result, but they would have died in any case, and progress toward a cure has been very rapid.
As with most obvious answers to problems in complex systems, the results are perverse: the FDA kills 100s of 1000s of Americans every year.
This is not just my opinion: There is a growing body of scholarly research supporting this.
This is quite a common assumption among medical professionals.
Lew
Looks like E.coli made #2. And this is the stuff that's found in ice at fast food restaurants... But hey, who needs regulation? That would be anti-American!!!!!!!1111
The current theories on the cause of antibiotic resistant bacteria place the blame on antibiotics and their overuse or under use. These theories utterly fail to explain one simple fact: most people don't come into the hospital with cases of drug resistant bacteria, they acquire those infections while in the hospitals. Some where in the hospital there are conditions which are breeding drug resistant bacteria.
I believe that the real cause of antibiotic resistant bacteria is far more prosaic than anyone has suspected. Before Doctors and Nurses give people injections they are quite properly taught to point the needle up, tap the syringe to force air bubbles to the top of the syringe, then squirt enough of the fluid out of the syringe to insure that the air is cleared from the device and the needle. This is utterly necessary to prevent the injection of air into the patient's blood system where it could cause a fatal embolism.
The antibiotic squirted out of the needle simply falls to the floor and creates a splatter. This splatter kills bacteria on the floor where it is intense enough to do so, but around the edges of the splatter surviving bacteria can breed resistant strains to every type of injectable antibiotic being used in the hospital.
When antibiotic splatter is combined with the modern janitorial practice of a one step floor cleaner, the floor becomes a giant Petri dish for the breeding of drug resistant bacteria. One step floor 'cleaners' can't possibly clean floors; they make the floor look clean and shiny, but since many of them are made of glycerin compounds they simply serve as a growth medium for the Petri dish.
So how do you solve the problem of antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria? You do two things: first, keep splatters of antibiotics off of the floor by performing the air clearing of the syringes while the needle is still in the bottle of antibiotics - immediately after filling the syringe- and by using a spillage overflow catcher pan under the syringe while it is being filled. Second, sterilize the hospital floors with bleach and intense ultra violet light sources mounted on the undersides of push broom like devices.
These two simple things will prevent the Petri dish conditions on floors which breed drug resistant bacteria. Both of these steps have very low costs while having very large benefits. They are similar in importance to the now standard practice of surgeons washing their hands before surgery, which was adapted in the 19th century, and which has saved countless lives since.
The economic justification for all of these things is obvious, reducing drug resistant bacteria cases will save insurance companies far more money than the slightly greater costs of better floor cleaning and splatter prevention protocols would cost them.
An additional note: if my theory is correct it would also explain what is causing the spread of antibiotic resistant bacteria. After the janitorial staff at a hospital finishes washing the floors, the waste water is simply poured down the drain. This puts the antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria that have been picked up by the cleaning process into the sewer systems of the municipality - where they are now free to spread in a food rich environment. Such floor water needs to be treated as hazardous waste in need of biological neutralization, not as something just to be dumped in a cavalier fashion.
If they won't remove and wash the lab coats & ties themselves, then hospitals and doctor's offices should install gigantic washing machines. The staff should force the doctor into the washing machine every four hours, but should refrain from using the hot wash setting. Once the wash cycle is complete, you drop them into a giant tumble drier. The problems with bacteria are now solved and, for those who survive, there's an excellent chance they will wash their own clothes more often.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
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We just had a local teen killed by some fungus infection called blastomycosis, never heard of it before today.
Got Code?
Developing new antibiotics is very costly and can be dangerous. Recently, courts have punished drugs manufacturers with incredibly high damage awards. Take for instance the COX-2 inhibitors Vioxx. Granted, there were two (2) victims, but there is no proof that the drug actually killed them. It was simply an added risk.
A lot of antibiotics have the potential to expose their manufacturers to that kind of 8-figure lawsuits. Some of them can create kidney or liver damage and are used as "last chance" drugs. Hospitals and doctors cover their arses by requesting waivers to be signed when this kind of dangerous treatment has to be attempted, but the waivers don't include drug manufacturers, which then become the logical target.
I am the first one to think that drug companies are business, not humanitarian angels, but this is getting ridiculous. There are currently almost 10,000 (10^4) lawsuits against Merck alone. If only 10% of these lead to the multimillion damage payola that's becoming the norm, the company will default and its research labs will be closed down. One less avenue for new drugs, at a time where new diseases are propagating fast and old one are reappearing. Good going.
On top of that, antibiotics are extremely expensive to develop, because of the test protocols involved. There were 10 new molecules brought to the market last year. Ten. The development cost for each was several billions.
So you have a product that has ruinous R&D and makes ambulance chasers drool so much they trip over their own tongue. Is it worth it?
The answer is clear: drug companies now prefer to devote their resources to creating new lawsuit-free products such as dinosaur-shaped kid vitamins. The margins are high, the risks are low, and the lawyers are kept at bay.
So next time you hear someone diss drug companies, remind them that thanks to this kind of attitude, the next generation will have to fight deadly infections with grapefruit flavored, T-rex shaped multivitamins. That ought to cure them all right.
Disclaimer: I don't work for a drug company. But I am not getting younger, and I'd like my generation not to have to back to chewing tree bark when we're sick.
--
Mad science! Robots! Underwear! Cute girls! Full comic online! http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/
Washington tries to assign blame to John and Jane Doe and accuses them of being hypochondriacs. Well, the over-prescription of antibiotics pales in comparison to the boatloads of the stuff consumed by farm animals.
Agriculture is one area where Tokyo should have taken a tough stand and told Washington where to shove the issue. Tokyo should have banned American beef until the Americans (1) test all their cattle and (2) banned the use of antibiotics.
(Some businesses will sack you if you fall ill. That won't work, in a society that promotes strong immune systems. Indeed, businesses would have to be required to provide a minimum of a month out of every year for sick leave, with mandatory leniency on those with long-term illnesses.)
The next-most important part is good nutrition, with a healthy environment coming next. This means that minimum wage must NEVER be below the sum of the cost for buying sufficient food of sufficient quality to meet all applicable standards and requirements, PLUS the cost of correctly storing and preparing that food, PLUS the cost of living in a suitably maintained environment. My guess is that this will triple the minimum wage. Oh, and there can be NO businesses or sectors that can claim exemption.
The net impact on the economy would be gigantic. True, after a decade or so, you'll get more people able to work more, be more productive, live longer, fall ill less, etc. Eventually, over a long enough term, there would be a net benefit to the country. In the meantime, though, it will be very painful and no politician is going to do something that could be painful to their votes.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
The floor is not likely the place where this is happening. You're talking about a few square centimeters of acres of floor for brief periods of time. Not a big selective pressure. Remember that resistance comes at a cost, and bacteria on the floor wasting resources on a transient insult like a splatter of a/b are likely to become quickly overwhelmed by the more rapidly multiplying bacteria once the insult is washed away. Now on the other hand, in a human body awash with a/b, the selective pressure is much greater, the wild-type bacilla are wiped out, leaving only the mutant bacteria around. These mutant bacteria will spontaneously mutate back into wild-type, over a longish period of time, once the pressure of the a/b has vanished. This is telling of the cost of adaptation
...2 of those are critters we work with in biology lab classes (in university) regularly. Although admittedly one isn't the antibiotic-resistant strain they mention in the article.
You have tried to support your argument with faulty reasoning! Go directly to jail; do not pass Go, do not collect $200!
Is it really the scientists asking for this? Surely scientists understand the relationship between antibiotic use and the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria? I would say it would be the scientists' employers who are PUSHING as hard as they can to relax all laws that stand in their way of creating & marketing their latest patented product.
Or maybe this is just the part of me that is 'incompatible with US values' talking? HAIL CAPITALISM!
It's pointless to develop new antibiotics until people change their behavior. What needs to change? Hospitals need to operate in ways in which supergerms can't be created and germs aren't transmitted between patients (or maybe we just need to close hospitals altogether). Doctors need to stop overprescribing antibiotics; antibiotics abuse should be treated as far more serious than narcotics abuse. Veterinarian and feed use of antibiotics should largely be banned altogether. And individuals need to readjust their expectations and behavior, reduce the risk of exposure to common pathogens, and treat even physically small injuries seriously--generally, practice better hygiene.
Until that happens, bugs are going to become resistant faster to new drugs than we can create new drugs. OTOH, if we had limited antibiotics use to those cases where it is really important, penicillin would probably still be the drug of choice.
However, maybe economics will do what common sense didn't: as new antibiotics become more and more expensive, people will naturally reduce their unnecessary use.
I keep hearing about the few rare VRSA isolates found, mostly in labs. In my mind, this is the more frightening, yet not realized, threat that faces the hospital community. I am always surprised if staph aureus is sensitive to methicillin/oxacillin nowadays- nearly every isolate is resistant. Moreover, the incidence of community-acquired MRSA/ORSA is skyrocketing in our area (Midwest)- beyond athletes or military personnel, but rather to routine individuals. Linezolid is not nearly restricted as it should be. I predict in about 5 to 10 years, VRSA will be widespread. Hopefully, non-antibiotic therapies will be available. A classic example is bacteriophage therapy, which has been around since the 40's (and used in Russia), but lost ground in research to the rise of antibiotic therapies. Engineered viruses may prove crucial in the future battle with these organisms.
I find it interesting and endlessly annoying that people who know enough about bacteria to know what a spirochete is don't know that the word "bacteria" is a plural, and thus if you are going to use the word "a" in front of it, it should be "bacterium". My father, who teaches university biology actually marks people down for doing this. An action that I completely agree with. It's like saying "this loci".
The parent and all the replies so far are guilty of the bacterium transgression. Shame on you all.
...or come to Australia where grass fed beef and lamb is the norm.
If my call is important, why am I talking to a recording?
However, if we were to correct these problems overnight, we would still be confronted with the drug resistant antibiotics that are already here.
Drug resistance would quickly disappear from the bacterial population.
Also, until this problem gets serious enough, behavior will not change. If we just throw money at the pharmaceutical industry, it will provide more drugs and people will just keep going the way they are.
Until we have a global ban on using antibiotics in animal feed, on most antibiotic treatment of livestock, and severe penalties for antibiotics misuse by doctors, there simply is no point throwing even more money at the problem.
I can also understand that the prospect of subsidizing big Pharma is also painful, especially when we know that they will turn around and overprice their drugs, claiming that they need to recoup the costs of development, even if that development money comes from the government.
I think overpricing of drugs is the best thing that can happen for antibiotics, because that finally discourages their use. And, sad as that may be, drugs with lots of unpleasant side effects are also good because they increase the cost and risk associated with antibiotic use. And if we don't make policy changes, then sooner or later, expensive and dangerous antibiotics will be all that's left and the problem will take care of itself--the hard way.
I agree that this is misleading. Botulinus bacteria (responsible for botulism) is one of (if not the?) most deadly poisions known to man. And now it's availible in a watered down form (botox...you know...BOtulism TOXin?!?!?!), all you have to do is evaporate! WTF?
The bigest problem is that we are giving people anitbiotics for everything which allows the organisms to adapt and become resistant faster. I have found that my children and my self do not use the anti bacterial gells and wipes for everything tend to be healther because we build up an imunity to the basic stuff that is around us every day. I get sick mabey once every other year. We do need good antibiotics out there but not for the common cold or the sniffles or a sore ear that might or might not be infected. I dont consider a piece of kix an infection. :)
So, roll in some mud, eat that piece of pizza that was left out the night before and our antibiotics may work longer.
I can't use my sig - my computer can't read my handwriting.
the "commonly accepted" mad cow theory states that BSE is transmissable, and the vector of transmission is feeding meat to ruminant (vegetarian) animals.
An "alternate" theory (alternate because only non-mainstream types consider it) is that BSE/et al are environmental diseases. The brits made their own cows mad, by requiring all cows be dosed with Phosmet, an organophosphate pesticide. This pesticide chellated copper ions out of the cow, leading to big problems in the british cow fleet.
The pasture land in Western Canada is copper-deficient, making their cows susceptible to BSE.
British organic beef farmer Mark Purdey figured this out, because he fought to keep the pesticide OFF of his cows.
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
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Splatters are spread by the foot steps of anyone who walks through the splatter - which spreads the antibiotic through most of the hospital floor space.
The advantage to the bacteria on the floor of not being killed by the antibiotics to which they are continually exposed far out weighs any advantage which natural bacteria would have in that environment.
If you would talk to hospital personnel - as I have - most of them know of a co-worker who has developed a bad antibiotic resistant infection after taking a fall on a hospital floor.
Let me propose a test to see which theory is correct: lets grind your face into a hospital floor until it is abraded and see if you develop an antibiotic resistant infection, while I take a shot of antibiotics to see if I get one.Or if you don't like that test we could inject you with the wash water from the floor while I get the antibiotic shot.
Of course when I put it that way - it is pretty obvious which one of our theories is full of crap isn't it?
It's, of course, hard to tell what your particular situation is, and I'm not a medical doctor (I'm a biologist), but on the face of it, it sounds like your doctor may be part of the problem.
Uncomplicated boils don't require antibiotics of any form. Any degree of squeezing is ill-advised because it leads to spread. The best prevention for recurrent boils is meticulous hygiene, including daily changes of bedding, towels, and all clothing. Skin disinfectants can be useful in limiting spread, but showering with Hibiclens seems excessive and not advisable to me.
Incidentally, a traditional treatment for boils that seems to work pretty well (in conjuction with the other measurs) is Ichtammol; it seems to soothe and also kill some of the germs. And it stains so badly that you will be sure to cover it up well and automatically practice good hygiene.
It's not relevant whether these drugs are expensive to develop at this point; what is relevant is that, given current practices, any new drug we develop will quickly become useless as well.
The greed of the pharmaceutical industry is not that they want a lot of money for the development of drugs or that they charge a lot of money, but that they argue for the development of new drugs in an environment where it is clear that this is pointless.
That article is so full of misinterpretations of microbiology that it's laughable.
These bacteria/fungus aren't especially deadly. They're just associated with nasty diseases. These diseases are typically only acquired by the compromised (e.g. "unhealthy immune system"). The same stuff that gives women yeast infections can kill you, if you're compromised. No 7-day treatment will help.
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
Much excited yelling followed that.
Because HMO penitration and medical payments to hospitals have continued to slide, most hospitals only have a few R.N.'s for 20-30 patients, and have many nursing aids, because that's all they can afford now. Many of the support staff are great, but they don't have the training to realise what they are doing wrong.
My tie generally stays tucked in my buttoned up labcoat, and my lab coat is bleached weekly. I highly doubt most MRSA cases are related to ties being dragged around on patients. Most bacteria only survive on dry surfaces for about 2 days at most, so I think you're safe from doctors ties if they have more than 3 ties.
..........FULL STOP.
Yes, I do realize that on the same day your tie could be dragged from one patient to the next, but who does that?
..........FULL STOP.
Yes. Yours.
If you want to talk about truly deady bacterial pathogens you must include baccilus anthracis and yersinia pestis. These are two of the most deadly "select agents." They can only be worked with in Biosafety Level 3 labs. This means that you have a Tyvek suit, huge HEPA filtration respirator. The whole BL3 lab has to be under negative pressure and you need biometric and keycode identification for anyone going in. Not to mention a background check and you have to work in pairs.
A common way to asses the lethality of a pathogen is to give it an "ID-50" or infectious dose that will kill 50% of those infected (also known as LD50 or lethal dose 50%). So pathogens with high ID50's are not so bad and the lower you go the more virulent/infective it is. Yersia pestis which causes pneumonic plague (you might know this as Black Death which killed ~20% of the Earth's population once). The ID50 for pnuemonic plague is 1. This means if you get on bacterium in your lungs you are dead, 100% of the time. You simply do not survive. It is a bit less pathogenic in beubonic form (skin infection). The worst part is that once you show symptoms it is almost always too late, there is 100% lethality. It is more deadly than ebola and the only reason people don't get it all the time is modern sanitation. The people that work with this bug in BL3 labs have to go to the hospital and get cipro if they run a fever of 104F and even then it is life threatening. It is one hell of a bio weapon because you are already dead by the time you express symptoms and by the time you start getting scared you have probably already infected a lot of other people. Not including Yersinia in "The Most Dangerous Bacteria" was probably a bit of an oversight.
When antibiotic splatter is combined with the modern janitorial practice of a one step floor cleaner, the floor becomes a giant Petri dish for the breeding of drug resistant bacteria.
It's not even that complex. Where does the leftover/past the date antibiotic go? Down the sink.
The human body is a veritable petri dish, perfectly incubated and full of nutrients. Most antibiotic courses are prescribed in a dosage that will kill the majority of infections of that type, plus a little for safety's sake. If the course of antibiotics is stopped or if the medication is taken over too lengthy a period of time in too small a dosage, then the bacteria take advantage of the wonderful petri dish that is your body. Because they have had an innoculation of antibiotic (just like we give viral innoculations to prevent disease) their tiny cells evolve and can survive the next antibiotic onslaught, keeping the bacteria able to reproduce and people more ill than before.
You may counter and ask why don't we give everyone wide spectrum or cocktails of antibiotic treatments on a regular basis since they are normally more effective against the treatment of bacterial infection? It goes right back to people not following their course of treatment. If medical professionals begin to prescribe these more hard-hitting treatments as a matter of course, then those treatments will quickly become obsolete for the same reason as mentioned above. This is of course ignoring the effect of very strong antibiotics on the helpful bacteria living in our systems which assist said systems in functioning.
Moral of the story: Do like you did in Kindergarten and follow directions (even if you start to feel better after the first day or two of treatment).
"Common antibiotic dangerous, Canadian study shows"
"SHERYL UBELACKER
"Canadian Press
"Toronto -- One of the most widely prescribed antibiotics in North America appears to dramatically boost the risk of potentially life-threatening blood sugar abnormalities, a large-scale study by Canadian researchers has found.
"The study found that the antibiotic gatifloxacin, sold under the brand name Tequin by manufacturer Bristol-Myers Squibb, is associated with an increased danger of both low blood sugar (hypoglycemia) and high blood sugar (hyperglycemia), when compared with other antibiotics."
More here: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM .20060301.wanitb0301/BNStory/specialScienceandHeal th/home
More likely the major stores of super-bugs are the bodies of patients being medicated, the nooks and crannies of the floor might be one storage place, but there's WAY more staph and such even in the noses of healthy people. as an aside, that fear of little air bublles is irrational: tapping the needle really isn't necessary, it takes more than a couple cc of air to cause problems. A doctor told me about that, as my wife was being hooked up to IV that had some truly miniscule bubbles in it.
See, I was just thinking that the bacteria which are involved in the production of cheese are pretty damn dangerous, when you consider the state of the average American's arteries...
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
The ones mentioned in the article, however, are really all over the place and quite prevalent in the environment (yes, even MRSA—at least where I practice medicine, the prevalence rate of community-acquired MRSA is somewhere between 30-50% of all Staph infections. They are no longer exclusive to the hospital.) They generally don't cause problems in people who have intact immune systems and have intact normal flora. The reason you run into trouble is that patients who have these bugs growing in their bloodstream or eating their lungs are usually already very sick, which automatically means their immune systems are shot out. And if they've been sitting in the hospital for a while, chances are they've had their share of powerful antibiotics which have wiped out all their friendly, benign bacteria that often keep these bad actors in check.
The Gram-positive cocci that get resistant—Staph. aureus and the Enterococci—are still pretty much killable. If you get MRSA, the community-acquired variants still tend to be sensitive to other drug classes like clindamycin, the sulfas, and the tetracyclines. The hospital-acquired variant tends to be tougher, but there's always vancomycin. There have been a few reported cases of vancomycin-resistant Staph. aureus but there haven't been massive outbreaks—yet. Vancomycin-intermediate forms are more common, however. Then there's VRE (vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus). For these, you can use linezolid, and so far this works pretty well, although there have been isolated cases of resistance as well (though much less common than vancomycin resistance.) What freaks me out, though, is that we're starting to use this stuff like candy, especially since it's available as a pill.
The nastiest bugs, though, are the Gram negative rods, which include E. coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Acinetobacter baumanii. We tend to treat Pseudomonas with a lot of respect because it becomes rapidly resistant to antibiotics, and if we find it, or even just suspect it, we start off with two agents at least off the bat. Acinetobacter, on the other hand, is pervasive in the environment, and usually only starts causing problems when it has overgrown, usually in chronically-ill patients who have been in and out of the hospital a lot and who have gotten frequent antibiotics or, as mentioned, in ICU patients who have gotten multiple courses of antibiotics. The problem is that it is very hard to kill, since it is frequently multi-drug resistant and we often have to start out with big guns like meropenem. The abuse of penicillins and cephalosporins has caused an ncreasing prevalence of bacteria with extended-spectrum beta-lactamase activity, and even these big guns don't always do the trick against these puppies.
What scares me the most is the fact that there are really no new drug classes in the pipeline targetting Gram negative rods. The newest classes—fluoroquinolones, carbapenems, and monobactams—really haven't seen much development since the 1980s, and fluoroquinolones at least have already become
#1 blindly repeating what a source says without fact checking
Ugh, this is just one long ad for big pharma, passed off as journalism. This is a perfect example of how not to do science reporting. A.C., PhD, Microbiology, 1996.
Shouldn't them be badteria instead. Oooh, scary.
w00t
Once after a culture test we found out that the antibiotic needed was a rarely used one. The price was very very low, it was one of the cheapest medicines in the market, but we could not get more than a few tabs because of shortage. Drug companies do not manufacture it much because of low margins. So people with rare bacterial infections have to shift to other antibiotics which are not very effective.
My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
FB : https://www.facebook.com/TanveersPhotography
...maybe it's intelligent design.
a cloud is mostly air.
if it was 100% water it would be a drip. Like you.
Let me propose a test to see which theory is correct:
Ummm... why can't it be both, plus animal feed, plus AB soap plus almost everything else mentioned in this discussion. The more selection pressures, the more selection all else being equal.
I mean, this is the first I've heard of your theory, and it seems perfectly reasonable (to me as a computer geek with a layman's interest in various sciences) as one vector for the creation and spread of these nasty bugs. Especially in that it illuminates a highly increased exposure to the more hardcore injectible anitbiotics which none of the other ideas I've seen here addresses.
I don't think it's really an area where one particular "theory" will win out or even that one is better. Obviously, somebody is bound to come up with something that just doesn't make sense and hence isn't worth wasting time or money on but it's not like there is only "One True Way" that increased resistance occurs.
"Lysol kills 99% of surface germs on contact! (And leaves the 1% with natural resistance to survice and breed in a new resistant strain.)"
Nothing evolves to be resistant to Lysol. The other 1% survive because it's hard to kill all the germs on a surface with *anything*. There are pits and cracks, the cloth you're using misses little bits, whatever. That's why we have autoclaves.
A "resistance" to Lysol would be, at worst, adjusting to live in Lysol. Such bugs wouldn't then be able to live out of Lysol.
Unfortunately, this is not true. These microbes are common hospital dwellers, you don't get most of them from eating beef or walking in the street. Infection-wise, a hospital is a very dangerous place to be: a lot of infected people living in crowded conditions (they only isolate you when they have a clear indication, ie when it is too late). The chances that you are not the strongest or healthiest person are very big if you need to go to a hospital, so the chances of you getting infected there are also higher then for a healthy person.
Farmers feeding antibiotics are a nice scapegoat, but if most/all resistant infections are via hospitals, don't you think it's the hospitals that need to clean up their act?
Giving antibiotics to cattle will create resistant microbes that live in cattle, but don't make them ill. If they would make them ill, that would mean a big risk to the farmer, so he'd kill his sick cows instead of waiting for them to get well again if the infection looks serious enough. Such measures will quickly stop a disease from spreading and developing.
The other thing is, that most diseases are host specific. Humans normally don't get verterinairy diseases, so some of them being antibiotics resistant does not matter.
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
Since more government regulations won't fix the antibiotic problem, how about less regulation? Without patents, i.e. artificial monopolies, pharmaceutical companies:
1. Won't be able to milk those $1,000-per-dose drug patents once competitors catch up, so they'll have to keep new and innovative products coming.
2. Won't be able to stop competitors from perfecting or improving on their drugs.
3. Won't have such a preference for maintenance drugs versus cures.
4. Won't be able to keep charitable foundations from helping people and doing research.
He who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
Also, wolves and lions lay with sheep and look after them. Kangaroos smile and cleverly jumps around. In other news, Australia's scenery-postcard production is up 23% from last year.
Did someone mention bacteriophages already?4 .htmlh ages.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacteriophage
http://www.intralytix.com/history.htm
http://www.overpopulation.com/articles/2003/00004
http://www.phagetherapy.com/ptlinks.html
http://www.bacteriamuseum.org/niches/wabacteria/p
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2572841.stm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A471575
Er, privatization.
Some things work well on the open market, while some, if one only looks, do not. As the article (in "Forbes", for crying out loud!) stated, there isn't much financial incentive to make these, so it's not a good business.
Even if I only needed the product for a week, it might be a week I'd care to survive.
Market forces can no more solve every problem than the government can solve every problem. Each situation needs to be examined on its own merit, party zealots... (in this case, Libertarian or Fascist, er, Republican supporters)
Yow! I'm supposed to have a plan?
AOL Software?? I didn't see it on the list.
"Doctors will not prescribe an antibiotic without first verifying that there is some type of bacterial infection."
That is just patently false. Based on that, the rest of your post is meaningless (but also wrong).
Especially this part
"If left untreated, sinus infections can lead to bronchitis and pneumonia. It is perfectly reasonable to treat such infections with antibiotics before they reach the lungs and require more significant treatment."
There's nothing reasonable about using antibiotics prophylatically, except in patients with depressed immune systems.
Having sinusitis (whic is an extraordinarily common chronic condition) isn't justification for using antibiotics.
How pathetic are you that you follow me from topic to topic and waste all your mod points at once modding me down?
The first bug listest is normally present in 40% of people, the second 95%, though normally in mild forms. The thrid is in dirt all over the place.
Obviously, a drug can't infect anyone. A. baumanii is not a drug, it's a bug.
And don't get me started on the inclusion of Aspergillus in a list of dangerous bacteria.
Geez, it's no wonder people are concerned about the state of science education in America. If this were an article about the six most popular cars and had this many errors (e.g. a discussion of the Honda Accordes, a reference to the Rav4 as a sedan and the inclusion of the Harley-Davidson Softail), it would be treated as a joke.
The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them. - Mark Twain
Developing new antibiotics to stay one step ahead (or only one step behind)of constantly evolving bacteria seems fruitless. How about reversing that dynamic?
There must be a rather large number of antibiotics available - how about a scheduled rotation from compound to compound over the years, so that it's the bacteria have to hit the moving target, instead of us. I.e., in 2006 we use these 6 antibiotics, in 2008 we all shift to these 6, etc., etc. Presumably the bacteria won't have time to become resistant, or, even if they do, they will have lost their resistance by the time you came back around to the beginning of your cycle. Meanwhile, you can still develop new antibiotics.
I suppose it would require an international agreement and the logistics are probably impossible, but it seems like a sensible thing to try.
- sgage
I read 800 WPM. That's not speed reading, that's not skimming, that's just how fast I read sitting there reading normally. And in order to process the picture *and* read the article text, I have to slow down or actually stop the slide show. I fucking hate those things.
One day I feel I'm ahead of the wheel / the next it's rolling over me / I can get back on / I can get back on
If a doctor has the option of giving a patient one medication which works, with few side effects, or several in combination that are marginally effective, may not work, and have severe side effects, the doctor would presumably want to go with option A.
In the case of resistant bacteria, they no longer have that option.
So to answer your question, yes it's the SCIENTISTS who are asking for more tools in their toolbox. That's not to say their bosses aren't happy about it, but your rush to assume the worst is unwarranted.
How pathetic are you that you follow me from topic to topic and waste all your mod points at once modding me down?
Way back when I was a bio geek we did a tour of the local research hospital. One of our guides was showing us various culture dishes, opening some up so we could see the pretty colonies growing, etc. The guide opened up one dish, waved it 12 inches in front of my face, and said "this is what killed Jim Henson". Not an airborne germ, so it was safe, but it was kinda creepy.
A few months later, the news was filled with stories of so-called "flesh-eating" bacteria. Rumor was, this was what killed Henson. Turns out he died from a much less media-worthy strep infection (pneumonia, IIRC), but I'll always remember that lab tech waving potentially lethal bacteria in my face.
Made me realize just how needlessly paranoid people are about bacteria.
Not long after, we actually got to work with flesh-eating strep in the lab. It was fun. I got out of that sort of work before the level 4 facility was built in my city though - that would have been a cool place to work!
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
Please Mod up.. very informative.
I enjoyed your post, and thought it made sense, so I sent it to a nurse friend of mine who works in a reknowned hospital... here's her reply:
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ugh! the world is filled with ignorami! This person has clearly not read the studies done on antibiotic resistant bacteria and CLEARLY has NEVER worked in a hospital setting, nevermind familiarized themselves with current nursing practice. So a bit of education is in order...
First - nurses rarely draw up or inject antibiotics via needle injection in the hospital anymore. Many antibitotics are given intravenously and are pre-prepared in the pharmacy IV room (a sterile environment). If and when medications (even antibiotics) are drawn up into a syringe with a needle, yes, the air does need to be expressed out of the syringe. This however is NOT to prevent an air embolis to the patient. It is to ensure that the proper amount of medication is being measured and delivered. As for air being fatal to the patient - yes, an amount of air greater than 3mL (most injections are less that 1mL of fluid) can be harmful (not usually fatal) if injected DIRECTLY into the bloodstream. ALL injections given with a needle are given either transdermally (like the little skin bleb test for TB), subcutabeously (or the into the fat tissue) where often an air bubble is used to aide in medication absorption, or intramuscularly (into the muscle tissue)....so unlike this person is suggesting, medications are NOT pushed like done by an IV drug user (let's look at practice in the 21st century for god's sake!).
Secondly - Yes, sometimes things like medications get dripped onto the floor but if this person looked at current regulations for hospital cleaning they would know that all surfaces in the hospital are cleaned with a bleach or bleach antiseptic equivilant to kill dangerous bacteria (yes, even the drug resistant ones). But because bleach and floor cleaning products are toxic to the human body we can't exactly prescribe a daily dose of clorox for each patient suffering from MRSA or VREC. So, although our floors are nice and shiney they have been disinfected first. As the cleaners are strong enough to kill the bacteria the risk of spreading bacteria through disposal of the cleaning water from the mop buckets is not a concern. The concern is rather the toxicity of the solvents used and therefore just like any other institution, the water is then treated and purified at municipal water facitilities just like it is to remove the human waste and household cleaning solvents used on an everyday basis. Seriously, there is a reason that I take my shoes off before I go in my house and it's not just because of what I walk on at work! Unless we all walked around with antiseptic layers on the soles of our shoes, think about what you get on your shoes when you walk across the street....those same shoes walk on hospital floors. It's just not practical. We aren't wiping the floors with the patient gowns before we put them on the patients. The use of bleach based cleaners has been implemented in the hospitals. The use of ultraviolet lights is an unnecessary exposure to radiation and and added expense. When chlorine bleach is used at a greater than 10% dilutant strength, it is strong enough to kill the necesary hospital germs and does not require rinsing. Therefore you have a one step cleaner that is perfectly effective. In all honesty, people who walk around in an office all day with that lovely low pile carpeting that almost never gets vaccuumed, let alone disinfected, are probably carrying around just as lovely of combination of bacteria and viruses on their shoes then the people walking around who may have just stepped in a small puddle of urine or vomit (I know you are all going eww!!! but hey, guess what, it's happened to me as a nurse more times than I care to admit)...
Lastly (I think most importantly) - Drug resistant bacteria is caused by the careless use and misuse of antibiotics (I'm not talking dripping it on the floor). Drug resistant bacteria first started popping up following th
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