Slashdot Mirror
Potential Cure For Antibiotic Resistant Infections
kpw10 writes to let us know about research to be published this week that offers hope in the battle against multi-drug-resistant bacteria. "Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have discovered that two drugs used to treat bone loss in old folks can both kill and short-circuit the 'sex life' of antibiotic-resistant bacteria blamed for nearly 100,000 hospital deaths across the country each year."
Um, doesn't marriage do the same thing?
Just asking, because it would certainly save a lot of money if we just get these bacteria to marry.
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
Always a concern, but the trend in medicine over the past decade or so has been to reduce the number of times we prescribe, even as we increase both the dose and duration of care when we do pull the trigger. Antibiotic resistance has been strongly linked to inadequate dosing (killing only the susceptible bugs, while letting the borderline-resistant clones reinforce themselves), as well as to courses too short or patient noncompliance.
Patients are part of the problem too, since there is a tendency (cultural in some cases, personal in others) to demand that a doctor "do something" to fix the problem. Antibiotics were perceived for a long time as something harmless to give in those circumstances, but that perception is fading fast. If anything, the trend now is to err on the side of letting things play out a little more to see if antibiotic therapy is really needed.
This has also caused physicians to have to explain the situation better. I know for myself that when I am explaining to a suspicious parent the reason that I'm not going to give their child an antibiotic for their viral infection, I don't waste a lot of time explaining resistance. If they already understand resistance, they're not asking for antibiotics. If they don't, it just sounds like I'm making things up. I focus instead on side effects and cost, and my typical (true) statement is "about all I can do with antibiotics would be to give your child diarrhea to go with her cold." This is surprisingly effective, especially in the parents of non-potty-trained toddlers.
None of which stops me from pulling out the stops when I'm faced with a septic kid or a real infection that needs to be nuked. In those cases, though, I'm very careful to make sure that the regimen I use is appropriate, considering the resistance patterns and the risk of making them worse.
Now if we could only get the idiots who lace animal feed with antibiotics to do the same. Ever wonder where resistant strains start? Hint: it ain't just in the hospitals.