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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."
I won't take it unless it comes with mint frosting.
I, for one, hope it doesn't work. I have a lot of shotgun shells and canned foods that will go to waste if my prediction of bacteria wiping out the human race doesn't come true.
I don't respond to AC's.
Let's inject it into all our livestock.
We are all just people.
Why do I have a hard time trusting a source like "curedeath.com"?
Yeah, the mangled title warps the entire premise, which is that there is a new weapon against superbugs that doesn't involve creating more super-antibiotics to fight the super bugs (which of course will just eventually lead to a massive super bug some day that will kill you before you can treat it since everyone is a big baby and rushes out to get antibiotics at the first sniffle).
Maybe if we didn't prescribe an antibiotic for everything that can ever go wrong with a person, there wouldn't be so many resistant strains.
Sniffles? Take an antibiotic.
If people wouldn't run to their doctor every time they get a little sniffle, we wouldn't have this problem.
Let your body fight off problems on its own. Only go for help when it's really life-threatening. Your "busy" life can wait a few days while you get better.
This is a sig. Deal with it.
This is a representation of some very adept work by researchers at Inimex and some well spent funding by CIHR.
The human body has seven systems: muscoskeletal, reproductive, skin, cardiopulmonary, nervous, digestive, and immune. Many of the ailments which people experience--cancer, diabetes, neurodegenerative disorders, prion diseases, leukemia, infections--invade tissues of the six other systems but are ultimately traceable as a deficiency in their own immune system. The immune system is trained as the maintenance arm of the body. When cells become cancerous the immune system is trained to find and remove them. When viruses and bacteria enter the body the immune system is trained to kill them. When plaques build up in the body the immune system is trained to remove them. When cells are starving, or asphyxiated, or agitated it is the immune system which is responsible for transmitting the proper signals systemwide and stimulating other tissues to produce the materials necessary to fix the problem.
The devoted study of immunology, of which the language which cells use to communicate with each other is central, has been pushed aside for many years by the larger, more established, more prestigious research groups both in academia and in the industry. When I worked at Abbott Laboratories, starting in '99, I found that their immunology department had recently been all but terminated in favor of shuffling the money to the devoted disease areas. While treating the diseases as separate from the body has led to some novel treatments (eg. antiangionesis and apoptosis for cancer) it seemed, to me, that a whole boatload of data which pointed to the potential cures available within the body itself were being ignored--not because they lacked scientific merit--but because the social structures within the company (and the industry) were attached to the research paths which were easier for the marketers and PR releases to handle.
To some extent that's the way things must work. The venture capitalists and investors need to know where their money is going or else they aren't going to contribute. That's a sad state of society, though, when one group's ignorance is stifling another group's innovation.
The study of immunology has quite a bit of potential for worldwide medicine. ImClone managed to open the popular path with its approach of monoclonal antibodies, though that segment was somewhat sabotaged by the insider trading scandal. Let's hope that companies like Inimex, and hopefully some companies in the US, will begin to devote greater resources to understanding how the body naturally works and working with it. Many of the detrimental side effects of today's pharmaceuticals are directly related to the immune system's response to those molecules being introduced into the body. The industry has really created its own problem of side effects by buckling in to the demands of the financiers and not holding to the strict scientific principles.
Even though they're in Vancouver I sent a resume.
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
The end result is that a person's immune system no longer has to do it's job, job gets done for it. The immune system becoems weaker, they get sick more, then get more anti-biotics.
Wash, Rinse, Repeat.
Immune system just doesn't work well for fighting off certain bacteria, such as tuberculosis and antharax. Also, a lot of hospital infections happen to elderly, AIDS patients and otherwise people with weak immune system. Even with a booster, it would be better to develop substances that kill bacteria directly.
We show that an innate defense-regulator peptide (IDR-1) was protective in mouse models of infection with important Gram-positive and Gram-negative pathogens, including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus and Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium. When given from 48 h before to 6 h after infection, the peptide was effective by both local and systemic administration. Because protection by IDR-1 was prevented by in vivo depletion of monocytes and macrophages, but not neutrophils or B- and T-lymphocytes, we conclude that monocytes and macrophages are key effector cells. IDR-1 was not directly antimicrobial: gene and protein expression analysis in human and mouse monocytes and macrophages indicated that IDR-1, acting through mitogen-activated protein kinase and other signaling pathways, enhanced the levels of monocyte chemokines while reducing pro-inflammatory cytokine responses. To our knowledge, an innate defense regulator that counters infection by selective modulation of innate immunity without obvious toxicities has not been reported previously.
We need to develop a new, superstrong antibiotic called Placebocillin. If that doesn't work, we can always try intravenous Cephplacebo.
Man, you really need that seminar!
The article is a link to a spam blog. The original content is in this press release, which was copied without attribution. The original source and contact information were removed, six ads were added, and a false claim of copyright was made.
The people behind this are Web Doodle LLC of Missoula, MT, run (as of 2002) by Branden Long. They have other similar spam blogs.
"falling antibiotics" - and immediately think of Dr. Mario?
> Because antibiotics are under threat due to an explosion of antibiotic-resistant bacteria
The antibotics are under threat--more accurately, we are under threat from those bacteria--because of poor medical practices. Not from everyone, of course, but from a tremendous number of people. (And the inefficiencies that have evolved into medicine are ridiculous, but that's another story--though one which makes it harder to rectify the real problems.) There are hundreds of hospitals that aren't strict about things like, for example, having people wash their hands before drawing blood, or, if they're putting on a new set of gloves to do it, not touching non-sterile surfaces until after they've drawn the blood. If you do that (and follow similar rules before starting an IV, etc...), you cut the number of staph infections down to almost nothing--to a tiny fraction of what they are otherwise. Just a few simple procedures...
But there are hospitals where those procedures don't happen. On a regular basis. So staph is hundreds of times more prevalent than it would be if people--people who are supposedly trained--did a few simple things as part of their working habits. I'm thinking of one Canadian hospital where a relative of mine was for a few days, but similar incompetence happens in the states, too. There was a hospital in Hawaii where I know of them managing to break six of a patient's ribs in the days before he died. You need to know which hospitals to go to, and you need to keep your wits about you when you're there.
Erm... Well, that was a bit of a rant. =)
This is a very speculative and pretty dodgy article. Firstly, it's not a new concept (being healthy is the best tool for stopping infection before it starts, and, secondary to this, immunization, sanitation and quarantine).
Secondly, drugs already exist which are used in severe sepsis to boost the immune system. These drugs are very dangerous and expensive and when used inappropriately cause as many deaths as they save lives.
While it is true that antibiotic use is excessive, the situation we have is that the people who are getting the MRSA and VRE and other 'superbug' infections are frequently already immune compromised and, in whole body infection, invariably die without antibiotics - nothing else is proven to work without them.
Also, it's a peptide. You can't take it as a tablet - it's not going to be on the shelves of your supermarket - and if it is, better off eating a hard boiled egg! If anything, it will be a small scale intravenous drug for use in intensive care units, usually when all else fails, just like all these other 'breakthrough' solutions.
Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
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?
to cows!!! and I don't mean fat chicks. Make it a crime against humanity.
Si vis pacem, para bellum! For evil to succeed good men need only do nothing!
- the peptide has to be injected within hours of -- or even before -- the infection. That means it's only likely to be useful in a hospital setting.
- anything that boosts immune response in a non-specific way runs the risk of causing over-reaction, at least in some people. (Think about the six healthy volunteers in England who nearly died because of an unexpected immune response to the drug they were testing.) Again, that means it'll likely only be usable in a closely supervised, hospital setting.
- since the publication is appearing in one of the Nature journals, you can be pretty sure this does exactly what it says it does, and really is a breakthrough for the particular immune response in question.
- re the commenter earlier who said there was no evidence of antibiotic resistance appearing except due to hospital misuse: total claptrap. Just one example: antibiotic resistance has been documented developing in chickens and cattle due to antibiotics in the feed. Those bacteria can pass to humans. Sometimes they cause symptoms, sometimes they don't. But even when they don't, bacteria are capable of passing bits of DNA back and forth, and genes for antibiotic resistance are -- for obvious reasons -- among the likeliest to persist in bacterial populations. So, if you eat a tainted hamburger, say, or spinach, the disease-causing bacteria on that item can mix it up with the other bacteria in your gut, and there you are. Fun, huh?
As a few other people pointed out, a boosted immune system isn't a good thing. A Healthy immune system is. No, I'm not a bioligist, Doctor, Immunologist, Rheumatologist, or Endocrinologist... but I have one of each in my contact list (Ok... so the Biologist is a friend who gave it up for Software engineering.... but I do have the others).
A heightened immune system causes Psoriasis, Psoriatic Arthritis, Osteo Arthritis, Rheumatoid arthritis, Allergies, Graves Syndrome, Crohn's Disease, and a whole host of things that range from unpleasant (allergies and Osteo Arthritis) to seriously painful (Psoriatic Arthritis) to life threatening (Crohn's and very severe psoriasis). I live it every day. It's ranging from my major discomfort with the current 5000+ pollen count on my business trip to Atlanta (where I'm sitting now) where Zyrtec is barely effective, to my Psoriasis (which gets worse when my immune system gets excitied like it is with my allergies pumped up) that leaves me with large raw bloody areas that pass for skin. Yeah... I know... you really wanted to read that while you ate dinner... welcome to my life.
Trust me... DON'T overactivate your immune system.... live well, take antibiotics only when you HAVE to and for as long as you have to, and enjoy a normal and healthy immune system.
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...
Researchers Find New Superbug Weapon for Failing Antibiotics Arsenal (3/27/2007),
...
The discovery, in animal models, will be published March 25 in the journal Nature Biotechnology.
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....
since everyone is a big baby and rushes out to get antibiotics at the first sniffle
Not me. I'm tempered in raw sewage!
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
Um, this is wrong. Production of beta-lactamases (i.e., penicillinase) is just one means of antibiotic resistance. There are lots of strategies that bacteria use to evade antibiotics without expending energy. One example is gram positive bacteria that use modified peptidoglycan.
Also, methicillin-resistant staph aureus doesn't infect only immunocompromised hosts. Neither do vancomycin-resistant enterobacteria. Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a major, major pathogen that affects immunocompetent people and still manages to be resistant to a lot of antibiotics.
Pathogenic bacteria are bad. Pathogenic bacteria that are antibiotic resistant are worse.
[from above]Except that antibiotic-resistant strains are generally less virulent than the old-fashioned kind
The view that antibiotic-resistant strains are less virulent is rapidly falling out of favor with bugs such as community acquired MRSA, XDR-TB and VRE. We are seeing bugs that are as virulent if not more in the case of CA-MRSA that are wrecking havoc on human hosts as they not only are antibiotic resistant but have specific virulence factors to work in human hosts. Panton-. Valentin leukocidin (i may have spelled that incorrectly) allows CA-MRSA to hang on to human skin very nicely, and the bug is an absolute terror if it gets into the blood stream. Anyways, My point isn't to go into the nitty gritty of virulence of emerging pathogens but rather to say that we aren't seeing less virulent new bugs but rather very deadly new bugs.
Z
--I swear, it was a case of isolated idiopathic hemibalissmus
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.
You need to keep in mind just how dangerous and deadly infections can be. I mean, people used to die from a relatively minor puncture wound or similar back before antibiotics.
If there is abuse of antibiotics, it is with livestock and perhaps the elderly. Average people are not getting antibiotics for the "sniffles."
-matthew
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death