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New Superbug Weapon to Replace Failing Antibiotics
An anonymous reader writes "Researchers in British Columbia have identified a peptide that can fight infection by boosting the immune system. Because antibiotics are under threat due to an explosion of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, this may be just in time."
a massive super bug some day that will kill you before you can treat it
Except that antibiotic-resistant strains are generally less virulent than the old-fashioned kind. It doesn't mean they can't kill you, of course -- obviously they do kill people, all the time -- but most of their victims are already immunocompromised in some way (the very old, the very young, AIDS patients, chemotherapy patients, etc.) Generating the enzymes necessary for antibiotic resistance, such as penicillinase, represents a pretty significant metabolic load for the cell; every bit of energy it has to spend protecting itself from antibiotics is a bit it doesn't have available to spend on reproduction.
I'm not trying to downplay the danger of antibiotic-resistant bacteria here, only pointing out that "superbug" is a relative term; just because they're tougher in one way doesn't mean they're tougher in all ways. For bacteria as for every other living thing, fitness is relative to environment.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
'Scuse the possibly stupid question, since IANA(M)BOD (biologist/microbiologist or doctor), but what about the potential for damage to your own body as a result of a temporarily ramped up immune system?
As I understand, this peptide temporarily boosts the immune system, which then is better able to fight off the invading organism. However, there are a number of medical conditions caused by an immune system that's a little too heightened--allergies for example, or a number of other, more serious conditions. When I was 21, I contracted "Rapidly Progressive Glomerulonephritis" which is a condition where the immune system attacks the nodules in your kidneys that filter your blood. I now have a kidney transplant as a result. Lupus, I believe, is another serious condition resulting from an overactive immune system.
If we start prescribing this peptide the way we currently prescribe antibiotics, what are the chances that more than the patient's immune system will attack more than just the intended target? Also, what if, like me, you have an intentionally weakened immune system (to prevent transplant rejection), when you take this peptide? Will you be at greater risk to reject the transplant, since the transplanted organ is a foreign body?
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
but for the most part, we are still plenty disgusting.
Your choice of words, and that outlook, are disturbing. We are stand-alone human animals, but we have complex symbiotic relationships with all the critters and bugs that live within and on us.
'Getting clean' and 'excellent hygeine' are relative terms.
What is a perfectly 'clean' dwelling? It is a chamber of death. Every living thing has been killed off.
We exist in a world of the living, not sterile chambers. We need to cope with and live with the other 'stuff' around us.
Actually, there has never ever ever ever been any causal link between antibiotic prescriptions for personal, in-home use and the development of antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria.
Funny, these guys seem to disagree with you. Specifically: "Clinical misuse of antibiotics may be more common among private practitioners than among public health personnel--private practitioners charge higher fees, the demand for antibiotics seen in private patients is higher, and more drugs are available in private clinics than in public hospitals "
Oh look, so do these guys. My search returned over 100 hits and it's really not my job to educate you, so I won't go on. But there IS a causal link. Ask any infectious disease specialist and s/he will cite a lot more articles for you.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Let's inject it into all our livestock.
Close, that's another project....
I didn't know we were allowed to talk about the peptide publicly yet. I guess the cat is out.
I've been working on the bioinformatics side of this project for over four years now, and it was very exciting when Bob and the guys in the lab made this discovery.
This really is a great new solution, prevent infection before it takes hold. Make the innate immune system stronger. Since no new classes of drugs have been developed for what, a decade? Just rehashing the same old types of drugs again and again, this is at least something new and promising.
Don't vaccinate against things for which there is no real reason to i.e; varicella (chicken pox).
Stop putting triclosan, etc. in every fucking toiletry and soap under the sun.
Were that I say, pancakes?
That's sounds a bit emotional. If it has any basis in scientific fact you haven't established it.
I believe you're espousing the age old theory that we'll eventually destroy ourselves by playing with nature.
That mad scientists with blow us all up. Actually the "massive superbug" theory , regardless of if you believe it will kill you, is rooted in scientific FACT, not emotion. The theory is basically same as evolution, overuse of antibiotics and anti-bacterial stuff will kill all but the most resistant, hard to kill, strains. Shifting the survival rate of the bacteria to the most resistant strains will make antibiotics ineffective. Furthermore, because rate of exposure of humans to bacteria is significantly lower, our ability to produce antibodies will be significantly reduced and will make us much more susceptible to bacteria(this is evident in Americans drinking water in foreign countries and getting sick, where locals are just fine because they've been exposed to this all their life). Now, since this is the same bacteria that has been "bred" to be resistant to antibiotics, we are really fucked once we catch it, since we have no way of killing it with drugs and our immune system can't handle it. So goes the theory.
-Em
RelevantElephants: A Somatic WebComic...
Those particular studies are pretty easy to discount. Developing countries != modern society, and the other one did not come to the conclusion you suggest. It showed a number of factors that lead to the difference, the most critical of which was the spread of resistant bacteria among infants in day care. Unless I missed something, it did NOT claim a causal relationship between higher prescription of antibiotics and greater frequency of antibiotic resistance, and indeed, at one point in the paper actually mentioned another study that showed that greater antibiotic prescription resulted in a lower incidence of death due to certain devastating bacterial infections.
Look, I'm not saying that antibiotic resistance can't ever occur as a result of use of antibiotics in someone's home, but odds are good that most of the time, the infected person will get another antibiotic and the infection will clear up. The end result is that over the course of the few days afterwards, any remaining bacteria in the home will die, and thus, there is only a narrow window of opportunity for those resistant bacteria to spread significantly. This is not true in hospitals, which is the reason why such a large percentage of antibiotic-resistant strains in the wild came from hospitals.
The other breeding ground for antibiotic-resistant strains is food animals. Because antibiotics are given prophylactically, non-antibiotic-resistant bacteria in food animals tend to quickly die out, opening the door for their more resistant counterparts to take over....
The correct approach to antibiotics is this: if you are sick, go to the doctor. If the doctor thinks it is bacterial, don't be an idiot and refuse the antibiotic. If the doctor thinks it is viral, similarly don't be an idiot and demand one. And if you have kids, don't use antibacterial soap. Let your kids play in the dirt. Let their immune systems develop like they are supposed to.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Has anybody ever understood that germs are a good thing? Ok, I know some people might think that I am being gross, but germs are why we are here today.
People don't understand that by having EVERYTHING, EVERY surface, EVERY food, and drink super-duper sanitized, we are doing more harm to ourselves than if we were not. Germs are what gives our immune system its effectiveness, and by reducing things it has to fight against, it loses the opportinities to recognize, learn about, and fight off foreign invaders.
People NEED to get sick. Period. There is no logical argument against that. The more sanitary we get, the sicker we become. Humans evolved through experiences with germs. If germs were as evil as a thing as we are being led to believe, then the human race, and just about all life, would not exist today. Immunity from diseases cannot be taught. Human beings can only learn how to fight off an illness by experiencing it.
Unfortunately, being anti-germ is a socially and politically correct thing to do, because your average idiot doesn't understand that you can beat your enemy be using it.
People NEED to get sick. People NEED to die. It's how he human race got to where it is, and now we are destroying the very germs we need to maintain effective immune systems. No drug can replace an immune system.
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
I believe the real solution would be clean hospitals.
Hospitals are the places where these bugs are
A hospital where a superbug cannot survive
+ Will not infect people
+ Will not become a feeding ground for such bacteria's to multiply
+ Worse will not become a evolutionairy playground of these kind of bacteria.
If this problem isn't tackled first then in then end bacteria's win.
As Bacteria can possibly evolve quicker then our knowledge of them.
I think also there is a very simple method that might help in this battle.
And is not used as of today, as i'm aware of.
So here I go under Free GNU opensource license:
Take TL light bulbs remove the special powders inside.
It will become a harmfull UV light source.
Ofcourse you cannt use this light always.
However when no one is in a room or corridor.
Such a light source could realy clean desinfect a lot of bacteria.
Think of it as a night light cleaning system, or just before operations start.
Altough this will cleans a lot
Still surface cleaning would be required, but i'm sure this method would clean a lot.
It's also verry easy just flip a light switch. Basicly this is a verry simple low tech idea, even poor hospitals could buy some TL's based on this idea.
A side effect is that some materials also brake down under UV light, but there also lot of materials who dont do that, so thats no idea killer.
I know you're out there. I can feel you now. I know that you're afraid. You're afraid of us. You're afraid of change.