Slashdot Mirror
Nanotech Paint To Kill Bacteria
ColGraff points out reporting at Science News about the possibility of killing bacteria with paint. Scientists in the UK have found that high concentrations of titanium oxide nanoparticles in paint can kill bacteria by creating hydroxyl radicals when exposed to ordinary fluorescent light. Titanium dioxide is present in most white paint at concentrations of 30% or so, but not always at nanoparticle scale. The researchers found that an 80% concentration of TiO2 nanoparticles worked well to kill E. Coli bacteria. There is hope that the technique could be used against "superbugs," which are resistant to multiple antibiotics. A researcher not associated with the UK team pointed out the problem with developing products based on this idea: "[A]nything that survives and sticks around grows greater resistance... ultimately [antibiotic paint] will be its own worst enemy and the bacteria could grow to be even stronger."
What a crazy thing to say. It's true, for sure, but has always been the case in the arms race against bacteria. It's what natural selection does...
What could possibly be the researcher's motivation to say such a strange thing?
*cough*She's the founder of a rival nanotech firm*cough*
A coincidence, or fear mongering unscientific FUD? You decide!
"Be light, stinging, insolent and melancholy"
Paint for bacteria and I guess really really small brushes to paint the bacteria. Nanotech at its finest!
Tetrasodium-including soaps have already given a free boot camp for bacterias at home when folks have been buying the stuff thinking it somehow makes places healthier. There's a difference between clean and sterile environments, and clean is really all that you need.
I am still at odds with killing every bacteria whenever possible. Something like 99 percent of E.Coli strains are completely devoured by anyone with a working immune system. Is it really worth taking the risk to kill that 1 percent that will make us slightly sick? Answer: No.
Who knows, what else this can do? Perhaps give you lung cancer or some other toxicity issue. The last thing we need is more pollutants and toxins in our environment. If the nanoparticles got on you they would kill bacteria on or in you probably to, that is bacteria that is necessary and essential to keep you alive. No thanks, id rather have a few bacteria rather than this risky stuff.
So much for grey goo.
Now we can have eggshell goo, sky blue goo, burnt sienna goo... the mind boggles.
Lets give people lead in small dosages from age of a baby to 18.
Whoever we dont kill will make the rest of them immune.
Or shall we say that boric acid with cockroaches will make boric acid resistant cockroaches? I think not.
Some things in biology are terminal, regardless of dose
...TiO2 is basically poison.
Caveat Utilitor
I found an article that has much more information about the actual mechanism of the TiO2 anti-bacterial effect.
The nice thing is that the titanium acts as a catalyst, so ideally it isn't consumed in the reaction.
The bad thing is that this requires UV light (below 385nm), which is really only present from "ordinary fluorescent lights" because they have bad phosphor coatings. All fluorescent lights really generate tons of UV, which is downconverted to visible via that white phosphor coating on the glass. But some UV escapes, and that's the stuff that triggers this anti-bacterial reaction. So good for anti-bacterial, but bad for skin cancer.
In any case, maybe this is the kind of thing where some dedicated UV lights could turn on when no people were in a given room, and that would make for the best of both worlds?
--
Hey code monkey... learn electronics! Powerful microcontroller kits for the digital generation.
I should have said "TiO2 nanoparticles are basically poison.
Caveat Utilitor
Before anyone gets in a tizzy... yes, I understand that grey goo is about self-replicating nanotech, and that this paint presumably does not replicate.
It's just a joke, OK? "Sky blue goo" is too funny not to say.
So you can use this new nano-titanium paint with a UV light and kill bacteria within 96 hours... or you can use the nano-silver paint to kill them with no light needed in 2 hours. And it's been around for around 4 years.
I can see the point in being cautious about where this is used, but surely this would be very handy in operating theatres and other places where a sterile environment is important?
A researcher [...] pointed out the problem [...]: "[A]nything that survives and sticks around grows greater resistance"
If those were his words, then I guess this "researcher" needs to do a bit more research, perhaps starting with a book written by a certain "Charles Darwin".
If the bacteria "stick around" it's because they are already resistant. Meaning they get to multiply, not to "grow greater resistance" (if they survived, their resistance is as "great" as it needs to be).
All that antibiotics do (in the long run) is change the relative populations of different kinds of bacteria (eliminating the ones that aren't resistant, leaving more room and resources for the resistant ones to grow). They don't actively make bacteria "get stronger", as the quote suggests. It's not as if the bacteria send a sample of the antibiotic to their underground lab where bacterial boffins come up with an antidote. They don't even have proper immune systems.
It's annoying when even "scientists" attribute some sort of "guiding intelligence" to the process of natural selection (or to individual bacteria, for that matter).
P.S. - And yes, I'm aware of plasmids, but bacteria can't suddenly rush out to buy some when they need them [ * ], so it's still a matter of selection, not "self-improvement".
[ * ] Unless they're playing Bioshock.
I for one welcome our heavily toxic overlords!
How do they break DNA if they're outside the cell nucleus?
Does the titanium dioxide in your sunscreen get taken up by skin cells? Does it even make it past the epidermis? (Not rhetorical questions, asking because I don't know).
Getting really weird, does this mean that if you're stuck without a first aid kit at the beach that you could substitute sunscreen for antibiotic ointment?
We left the evolutionary race with the invention of antibiotics... meanwhile bacteria has been evolving steadily. Until man can create a faster and more reactive system than the human immune system to combat infections, the bacteria will eventually win. Human death is a natural part of that. If my immune system can't handle a strep infection, death is what keeps me from sharing my genetics with future generations.
Trying to stay ahead of microorganisms is a war that will get increasingly expensive and difficult for us, and will cost infectious strains nothing to wage forever. And the second we slip or fall behind, it's going to be disastrous for any of us who now share unfit genes.
bacteria kill YOU with paint!
Titanium Dioxide can also be found in McDonalds (and others) honey mustard. Just putting that out there...
Upon taking on a 40 year old mobile home project..metal siding made a beeline to the wooden eves..everything possibly human and disgusting of course. I bought primer with fungicide in it...came only in white paint. Its been 5 years and its fallin off, but hey, I bet it did its job..
metal siding and wooden roofs is as dumb as vinyl on the house. You disgusting pigs. I hope they do come out with something. houses and reality stopped when planks did....modern plagues like a honda automibile will prevail as we stunt our way into midget clones and limiting babies produced by a bizarre itch. If paint needs anit-bacterial,I needf another locale... I would assume kitchen working could use it, and even then, clean the damn thing...like smart kitchen workers would. this has been mentioned. there are other things for nanotech to bring about. Bull crap we got enough of...
I realize that we face a pretty tough battle with certain "superbugs", but wouldn't one expect that as these bacteria adapt immunity to current antibiotics that they'll open up a weakness to something else? I suppose it's _possible_ that they're evolving to be stronger in a general sense, but usually I think of evolution as becoming more fit for one's environment -- which usually makes one less fit for another environment. Engineering is all about tradeoffs -- whether via intelligent design (our designs) or evolution (natures "design"). We created a new environment for them by introducing antibiotics, which they've adapted to. So we'll change the environment again.
I understand this is not simple or straightforward, but I think the idea of "superbugs" is a bit of misnomer -- they're only super until we find the next weakness, and I imagine they'll always be one, even if it takes us a while to find it.
Cheers.
to kill in pursuit of their experiment, including rats, pigs, sheeps, and possibly even human beings one day.
As one of the lead researcher said, "once we are able to manufacture bigger brushes, there's no way telling the limits of this technology!"
A researcher not associated with the UK team pointed out the problem with developing products based on this idea: "[A]nything that survives and sticks around grows greater resistance... ultimately [antibiotic paint] will be its own worst enemy and the bacteria could grow to be even stronger."
The "researcher" is full of shit. Evolution is about tradeoffs, not about "getting stronger"; after billions of years of evolution, bacteria are about as strong as they are going to get.
Resistance to TiO2 paints would have to come at a price for bacteria: they need to shed some other resistance, grow more slowly, become more susceptible to phages, etc.
"ultimately [antibiotic paint] will be its own worst enemy and the bacteria could grow to be even stronger."
Oh wait. Already in the summary. No need to tag it. No need to even read TFA.
Well done, sir. I'm impressed. ;^)
--
Toro
Remember DDT?
TFA mentions experimental nano paint to block cell phone signals...how could that work? would it also block wifi?
GENERATION 25: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the purple monkey dishwasher
Is it just me, or has ever recent nanotech 'discovery' been just another use of titanium dioxide? Recent discoveries involving TiO2 include self-cleaning glass and T-shirts, 'nanotech' cat litter, and even the memristor.
On a related note, using this in paint is nothing new - according to Wikipedia, about 70% of pigments already contain TiO2.
No bacteria will ever be able to adapt to BLEACH. Bleach remains the tried and true no-escape bacteria killer.
Mod Me Up. You'll make a grown man cry.
A highly antibiotic resistant strain of TB beat me up and took my juice money :(
Does it kill politicians?
The reason antibiotic resistance develops is because antibiotics are highly targeted to a certain bacterial mechanism, usually one enzyme or protein, or a complex of enzymes working together. For obvious reasons, these have to be enzymatic mechanisms and proteins unique to bacteria, and not found in humans, primates, mammals, etc.
On the other hand, chlorine kills everything, regardless of details of underlying biology. Presumably, this paint would do the same, unless they evolve some complex way of dealing with titanium dioxide, which is highly unlikely IMHO.
They already do something similar to this in the food industry. There's a paint with Silver Oxides (I think, it's a silver compound anyway) They can either paint it on, or mix it with an epoxy for floor coatings. It's supposed to kill any bacteria on it.
Also, mentioning superbugs in this context doesn't make sense. Killing superbugs _outside the human body_ is no problem at all, and they will not be able to develop any kind of resistance against most forms of disinfection (that includes using oxidizers). Saying that they might become resistant to something that oxidizes the shit out of them is like saying they might become resistant to being heated to 200C - there's a few physical and chemical processes that no life form on Earth tolerates very well.
Bacteria are like neighbors. If you kill off the nice quiet ones, don't complain when bad ones take their place (and ignore the eviction notice).
I think the optimal environment is somewhat less than clean. Your immune system needs a mild thrashing now and then to work optimally. There is a two week kick-in needed for it to get working on newish threats. Far better for you to have encounters with likely threats and have a higher set of T-cells (or whatever the recognition set is) poised to kill the little bastards. On the other hand, your immune system can be overwhelmed by a massive continued threats and simply give up on the threat as being 'alien'. Not too dirty.
So I'd agreed with the less-than-sterile advocacy here, but go further. Some but not a lot of crap in your life is good. Basically, hospitals should be sterile, recovery at home (and infants to 3 months) should be clean, and the rest of us should only avoid serious threats.
As for the earlier posts that 'we will evolve to counter the threat'. Basically, that is true. But your metabolism should be regarded as an economy with winners and losers. Resources get switched to where they are needed. If people evolve lead resistance, it may be at the cost of less effective metal-centered enzymes. The other downside to evolution is that it is selective. It does not make for better. It simply weeds. It may well become hostile to techies. Lead (or TiO2 or whatever the threat is) resilience may require a smaller brain and blood-brain barrier that delivers less oxygen, but is a better filter. Or simply people who start breeding at age 14, and have lots of kids.
Evolution and the immune system pick winners. Clean-living good guys come last.
Who can say for sure what will happen? This brings to mind what happened to a strain of E. Coli. They were experimenting on a streptomycin resistant strain and they noticed something strange. Some colonies actually needed streptomycin to live! Evolution can do some really strange and unpredictable things.
The comment in the article is meaningless. It's like comparing, in the case of plants, developing a resistance to pesticide (i.e. antibiotics) with developing a resistance to buzzsaws (i.e. this paint).
I for one welcome our new bacteria killing, aesthetically pleasing, nano-overlords.
Horns are really just a broken halo.
So this bacteria might need x food, whereas its paint-resistant form might need x+3 food. If there's only x+3 food available to the bacteria, that's all it can do. It can't even reproduce because x+3 isn't enough for the cells to divide. Now, what if you slathered the wall with antibacterial soap? The bacteria would need to have soap-resistance at another +2 food, which isn't there.
And they say that video games are not educational...
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
This paint attacks them via a much different mechanism than antibiotics do. When the TiO2 nanoparticles are moist and exposed to ultraviolet light it breaks down the water into hydrogen gas and a Hydroxide ion, The hydroxide ion is the same that is generated when lye or sodium hydroxide is added to water and it chemically burns the bacteria to death. I suspect this paint will not last very long because it will decompose on exposure to moisture and ultraviolet light, just like the bacteria it is killing.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
It alway seemed ludicrous that health facilities spend major amount of money buying disinfectants that only work slightly better than laundry detergent and bleach costing 1/100th as much to use. Usually the dirtiest thing in a hospital is the wheels on the mop bucket anyways; how is antibacterial paint on the walls going to stop that?
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
In many cases all that is needed is soap and water.
So the real question would be, is any resistance encouraged by this nano-particle approach an expensive trait or not?
The thing is is once these approaches of using antibiotics gets started they won't end, at least not without something dramatic happening. Instead when a biotic becomes resistant industry will work to make a more powerful antibiotic. Strains of Mosquito born malaria are getting resistant so companies are trying to develop stronger drugs, that's one of the things the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is working on.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Resistance is an expensive trait. Bacteria which evolved many resistances would be as bloated as Vista and similarly unable to perform their original function efficiently, thus mostly harmless (pun doubly intended: It would also be a very effective Douglas Adams-esque way of dealing with the threat)
(oh look btw, 11 updates plus the friggin' no-thank-you Silverlight, and a mandatory reboot which I can only postpone.)
Vacuum cleaners suck. Kings rule.
On the other hand, chlorine kills everything, regardless of details of underlying biology.
Careful what you wish for...
http://scholar.google.com.au/scholar?hl=en&lr=&client=firefox-a&q=chlorine+resistant+bacteria&btnG=Search
What bothers me most about the article is that the research claims that bacteria will gain resistance to this method of treatment. This is a physical process, much like heating bacteria causes them to rupture and freezing causes ice crystals to shred them.
Titanium dioxide won't directly affect any micro-organism. However, when you throw some water and UV light into the mix, titanium dioxide catalyzes the breakdown of water into hydroxyl particles: OH.
These particles love to grab onto free electrons and thus disrupt DNA (data corruption!). This in turn prevents the bacteria from replicating. Look up advanced oxidation treatment if you want to know more about this mechanism.
I am not a biologist but getting my BS in Civil engineering I took a few classes covering this kind of treatment.
So we get bacteria who adapt to live in conditions that are totally unlike the conditions inside a human body.
It's really not a matter of what "conditions inside the human body" are like. Conditions inside the human body don't normally include the presence of vast amounts of amoxicillin, for example. And yet, when you have a bacterial infection, taking amoxicillin tablets will get rid of them for you.
Bacteria that aren't "adapted to the conditions inside the human body" aren't a threat to begin with, so they're irrelevant. The problem with antibiotic resistance is that, if you wipe out 99% of bacteria, leaving only the 1% that are resistant to that antibiotic, when those multiply to fill the space left by the ones you killed, you have as many bacteria as you started with, but now your antibiotic is useless.
Not that the arguments in TFA make much sense, mind you, but saying that bacterial resistance is only an issue if they're "adapting to conditions inside the human body" is missing the point. Normal conditions inside the human body don't include antibiotic drugs.
My CVS2 Bison has been killing people for years now. Fresh can of paint! Paint the fence!
The eternal struggle of good vs. evil begins within one's self.
because it is too different from their usual environment that they can't adapt quickly enough, because it requires changing too many genes.
Bacteria don't "change their genes to adapt" any more than you can "change your genes" to grow gills if the ocean level starts to rise.
When you expose the bacteria to some "challenge" (extreme temperature, antibiotics, etc.), those not able to deal with it will die. The ones left alive are the ones that were already adapted (by pure chance, due to a mutation that proved useful). Those will then reproduce, eventually occupying the room left by those that died.
So bacterial populations seem to "adapt", but in reality they are just undergoing a process of (natural, environmental, whatever you want to call it) selection. The bacteria didn't adapt, the weak ones just got eliminated and (over time) replaced with ones that could survive under the new conditions.
Naturally, smaller changes in the environment are less likely to kill many bacteria, but bacteria have been found living both in arctic ice and inside volcanos, so don't underestimate their resistance (look up "extremophiles"). The chances of a bacterium in your living room being able to resist a temperature of 500 degrees are very small, but they are not zero. And if you kill all others but that one bacterium survives, you'll soon have a room full of bacteria that can survive at that temperature.
While individual bacteria are much more "fragile" than complex life forms, like humans, their high reproduction rate leads to far more mutations, and therefore a much bigger ability to develop strains that can adapt to extreme conditions. High mortality and high reproduction rate are the "intelligence" behind natural selection.
Antibiotic drugs are a pretty big waste of money in terms of development
I don't think antibiotics are a waste. What I do consider deadly is improper use of antibiotics. Such as not following through with an antibiotic regime a doctor prescribes. Or flushing unused drugs down the toilet. Both of these are part of the reason microbes develop drug resistance.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Wattyl's patented CureIt(TM) technology keeps you free from disease and sickness, as well and standing strong against the elements. Cure Influenza with a lush rainforest green or sky blue! Never miss work with a bug again thanks to our Maroon StomachSaver line of paints!
CureIt: Wattyl it cure today?
1) Does it come in black?
2) Is it suitable for use on doors?
3) Does the answer to 2) change if the door was originally red, and if so, how?
Sir, you made some interesting claims here! Do you have any studies to back up your claim? In the words of a commercial, "Where's the beef?" List some studies in a reputable scientific journal by reputable biologists.
They all said I was crazy for sniffing paint! Well who's laughing now, Mr. Full-of-Bacteria LOSER!
mmm, radicals
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
It is fine to use the shorthand "grow a greater resistance" to explain the behavior of the strain's evolution. [...] s/he used a layman-accessible shorthand.
I disagree. I don't think it is fine, because "laymen" will interpret that as "bacteria that have contact with an antibiotic will learn how to resist it". Ask around and you'll find that most people belive this. That is, after all, how our immune system works, and how humans (and other complex life forms) deal with challenges.
They don't understand the difference between individual bacteria adaptation ("bacteria growing a resistance") - which doesn't really happen - and strain evolution through (random) mutation and environmental selection (followed by multiplication).
So, when most people are ignorant and when most journalists are ignorant, one would hope that at least the scientists would make an effort to use language that is correct, even if it requires an IQ above 85 (or the ability to open a book and read a couple of pages) to understand. Using "simplified" language that is misleading or plain wrong might get through to more people but achieves the opposite of what it should. In this case, it reinforces people's perception of a selective process as an adaptative process (at the individual organism level). And then they wonder why people fall for nonsense like creationism and intelligent design.
Hell, most people don't even know the real name of Darwin's theory. Calling it "evolution" is missing the point. I guess it's "simpler" than "natural selection" (two words - double the complexity!), although "evolution" just means "change over time" and "natural selection" sums up the actual process.
I think I'm going to eat some cheese.
They used to put lead in house paint, and mercury on seeds, to prevent unwanted biotic infestations. Then they discovered the benefit was small, and the harm they were doing to people was great. We live in a modern world that is at odds with the very evolutionary machinery that created us. Part of the problem is that we seemed hell bent to ride the proverbial horse in the direction it's not going. We try to beat our environment into submission, all the while forgetting that we are still part of that environment, and that the cost of that beating will be paid all too often by our children.
If you should choose to make a paint that uses photo-oxidation to kill unwanted bacteria, you better ask some really pointed questions about the new environment you're creating;
Don't get me wrong. I'm all for a better life through clever engineering, I'm just saying I want to make sure the cure isn't seriously worse than the disease. It's like the ads I see on television for new drugs. Before I take that new medication for restless leg syndrome, I want to know that the most common side effects aren't slow painful death, lymphoma, and my ass falling off at the most publicly humiliating moment.
Someone with a good sense of how these materials impact human ecologies, needs to give this at least a quick once over, to make sure that we're not just shooting ourselves in the foot (again.)
"wouldn't one expect that as these bacteria adapt immunity to current antibiotics that they'll open up a weakness to something else?"
No.
"I suppose it's _possible_ that they're evolving to be stronger in a general sense, but usually I think of evolution as becoming more fit for one's environment -- which usually makes one less fit for another environment."
It _sometimes_ results in organisms that are less fit for other environments, but the many, many cases of plants and animals that humans have deliberately or accidentally introduced into environments they didn't evolve in with disastrous results for native species demonstrates the fact that organisms which manage to survive high degrees of environmental stress can end up being better all round than ones which specifically evolved in a particular place.
" Engineering is all about tradeoffs -- whether via intelligent design (our designs) or evolution (natures "design")."
"We created a new environment for them by introducing antibiotics, which they've adapted to."
Antibiotics aren't a human invention, they're a human discovery of a natural defence mechanism whose origins predate multi-cellular life, so we weren't creating any sort of environment that bacteria haven't been successfully dealing with for hundreds of millions of years. The fact that bacteria weren't wiped out log ago by organisms which produce natural antibiotics should have been a pretty good indicator that they were capable of surviving attacks from these weapons in an unimaginably ancient war, so somebody should have realised that indiscriminately exposing vast numbers of them on a continuous basis over several decades wasn't a very bright thing to do.
"So we'll change the environment again."
Until we run out of environments that we can survive in but bacteria can't, which won't take long when we're dealing with organisms that can thrive in conditions which would be lethal to us, e.g. the thermophylic bacteria that live around deep sea volcanic vents, and happily grow in 114C water at pressures of 400 atmospheres where they metabolise hydrogen sulphide and metals.
I'm not going to change your sheets again, Mr. Hastings.
I know that, I just did not formulate it accurately enough, but thank you for your well-written and clear post.
I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
"no bacterium is resistant to chlorine, and we don't worry about it happening."
There are chlorine-resistant strains of Escherichia coli that can cause food poisoning in humans and some other animals:
"http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1058053"
Any more claims about things that organisms which have happily survived at least 3.5 billion years of drastic environmental changes in planetary conditions can't become resistant to that wouldn't result in the entire planet being rendered unsuitable for any form of life?
I'm not going to change your sheets again, Mr. Hastings.
"the possibility of killing bacteria with paint"
... but fundamentally, paint with anti-biotic properties seems like old news.
I live on a boat. the paint I use on the bottom is toxic stuff. It's designed to kill anything. The best stuff is illegal in the US.
Even way back when, people put copper in paint. Copper has anti-bacterial properties. I've also seen people add mold and mildew remover to their paint.
I suppose that this being some fancy nano-technology is new,
The paint does not decompose, it works as a catalyst. Only the water (most probably from moist air) that comes into contact with the paint is decomposed, therefore, the paint should last essentially forever.
... no bacterium is resistant to chlorine, and we don't worry about it happening... ...chlorine kills everything, regardless of details of underlying biology...
Uh, dude, I consume a fair quantity of chlorine every day, and not only do I survive this, but the bacteria in my gut do also.
And, I've seen living organisms flourish in chlorinated swimming pools. Everything from bacteria to dytiscidae to amphibians to human children.
And finally, my spouse has been a water quality research scientist for 20 years, and I assure you that organisms evolving various types of resistance to chlorine is something they worry about.
I don't know much about microbiology, but would it make sense to assume that we can develop enough different antibacterial products that no bacteria can resist all of them? I suppose the question is whether resistance is a positive 'effort' by bacterial DNA, or whether susceptibility is more of a glitch in the DNA. Can I argue there is only room for X number of resistances before bacteria have to choose which ones to keep and which to drop? If so, would it ever be reasonably possible to produce X +1 antibacterial chemicals?
This question has been bugging me (sorry!) for a while.
My webcomic
Not only that but there is some evidence that children need some exposure to germs for their immune system to develop properly. Without this exposure their immune systems start to react to normal items that are a part of their environment. Allergies for short. In extreme cases it can actually develop into an autoimmune disorder. I'm not saying that it is healthy to live in a pig sty.
Aristotle said it best when he thought up the "Golden Mean".
I hear what you're saying. Just a couple things:
Antibiotics aren't a human invention, they're a human discovery
True, I was just referring to the idea that we changed the environment (i.e. our body) by the introduction of a foreign substance (antibiotics) from another environment. The human body on antibiotics is a new environment for bacteria to adapt to, which many of them have done.
somebody should have realised that indiscriminately exposing vast numbers of them on a continuous basis over several decades wasn't a very bright thing to do
I've heard this before, but I don't see what other options we had. There should have been no surprise that the critters eventually adapted. But if we didn't use antibiotics we would have just let people die, which is no better than people dying in the case of resistant strains now.
Not sure how that would have been a smarter move. I highly doubt that being more stricter with antibiotic use would have significantly delayed adaptation. It was always just buying time until we could develop something else.
If you're right that invasive bacteria will be able to outlast us in this war of attrition, then we're screwed anyways and always were screwed whether we used antibiotics or not. However, I doubt that's the case. I think the war will ebb and flow for the foreseeable future both with the adaptation of our immune system and our discoveries of different means of antibiotic action.
Cheers.
"I've heard this before, but I don't see what other options we had."
We had the option of not prescribing antibiotics for colds, 'flu, and other ailments that they were useless at treating because "people expect to be given something when they visit the doctor"; we had the option of not using spectrum antibiotics when a specific one would have been more appropriate; we had the option of not injecting huge numbers of cattle with spectrum antibiotics for decades because it makes them grow more quickly; we had the option of ensuring that TB patients completed their treatment regimes; etc., etc., etc.
"There should have been no surprise that the critters eventually adapted."
Unfortunately, everyone in the medical profession seems to have been very surprised indeed by what happened, although evolutionary biologists of course were not.
"if we didn't use antibiotics we would have just let people die, which is no better than people dying in the case of resistant strains now"
It wasn't using antibiotics in life or death situations that led to most of our current problems, and even when they were combating diseases such as TB, ensuring that patients completed their treatment instead of stopping when they felt better would have prevented some of the resistant strains developing as quickly as they did.
"I highly doubt that being more stricter with antibiotic use would have significantly delayed adaptation"
It could have delayed things for decades by _significantly_ reducing the number of bacteria that were exposed to all antibiotics, and in the case of TB, ensuring that all the pathogenic bacteria in a patient's body were killed instead of stopping treatments at the point where the slightly more resistant ones were still alive.
Evolution is a numbers game where sustained culling of the general population reduces the competition for those that don't die, so you inevitably arrive at a point where every organism has traits that the ones who died lacked. Whether this happens slowly or quickly obviously depends on how frequently and completely you cull the general population.
"It was always just buying time until we could develop something else."
We'd have had a lot more time to develop something else if we hadn't spent over half a century acting as if antibiotics were the gift that keeps on giving. Science knew about natural selection, and it knew how quickly the process could work with organisms that produce a new generation every few minutes, so there is no excuse for having abused antibiotics the way we did, and in many cases, still do.
"If you're right that invasive bacteria will be able to outlast us in this war of attrition, then we're screwed anyways and always were screwed whether we used antibiotics or not."
The problem was not antibiotics in and of themselves, but massive abuse of them despite warnings by evolutionary biologists about the inevitable consequences of doing so.
"However, I doubt that's the case. I think the war will ebb and flow for the foreseeable future both with the adaptation of our immune system and our discoveries of different means of antibiotic action."
Different means of antibiotic action will inevitably be abused just like the others were until we end up with polyextremophile pathogens that thrive in any conditions we can throw at them that don't kill us first. They key to dealing with pathogens is therefore to either modify them, modify us, or both so that we can tolerate them instead of killing them, just as we tolerate an extremely wide range of micro-organisms that live on and in us, producing all sorts of waste products that may well have been lethal to the majority of our ancestors.
I'm not going to change your sheets again, Mr. Hastings.