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A Post-Antibiotic Future Is Looming (www.cbc.ca)
New submitter radaos writes: A gene enabling resistance to polymyxins, the antibiotics of last resort, has been found to be widespread in pigs and already present in some hospital patients. The research, from South China Agricultural University, has been published in The Lancet. According to research Jian-Hua Liu, "Our results reveal the emergence of the first polymyxin resistance gene that is readily passed between common bacteria such as Escherichia coli and Klesbsiella pneumoniae, suggesting that the progression from extensive drug resistance to pandrug resistance is inevitable."
Work on alternatives is progressing — Dr. Richard James, former director of the University of Nottingham's center for healthcare associated infections, writes, "Until last month I was still pessimistic about our chances of avoiding the antibiotics nightmare. But that changed when I attended a workshop in Beijing on a new approach to antibiotic development based on bacteriocins – protein antibiotics produced by bacteria to kill closely related species, and exquisitely narrow-spectrum."
Well the good news is we might get our freedom back. Some major insurers are talking about leaving the exchanges because they can't make any money at it. Others are talking about another round of big premium hikes. Its going to suck in the short term and good people are going to lose coverage and find themseves subject to tax penalties.
With a little luck though the terrible law that crushes peoples religious freedom and their freedom to do what they wish with there personal property will go down in the flames it deserves. Obama will have the legacy he deserves, "A paternalistic freedom hater we were all better off without."
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Wow. Didn't take long at all for the first "Thanks, Obama!" post.
It doesn't matter who you blame it on, the ACA is a shitty excuse for a national health care system. The insurance companies are part of the problem, and the ACA makes them a mandatory part of the solution. Anyone should be able to see that's a horrible failure, regardless of partisan identity.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The reason why antibiotic-resistant strains have been forming and allowed to be a problem is that people have been misusing antibiotics.
A small scale problem is that antibiotics have been used by human patients that would not benefit from them. Other patients have stopped or cut down on using antibiotics when they have started to feel well - but before the strain has been fully eradicated. In some countries, antibiotics have even been available over the counter without prescription.
A large scale problem is the over-used of antibiotics in agriculture. Livestock are given antibiotics in their feed as a precaution, and this is still going on on a large scale in most Western countries.
Antibiotics-resistant strains are widespread, even the norm in many parts of the world.
Seriously, this has to stop! We need to treat this problem seriously. If a resistant strain of bacteria is found on a farm then that farm should be put in quarantine and the stock of animals should be destroyed, like what happened when Mad Cow Disease - but instead this is seen as normal. Diseased eggs and meat are the norm, and I am not talking about third-world countries. I am talking about Western Europe and the USA.
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
Is that a roundabout way of saying that some complete and utter moron has been feeding the antibiotic of last resort to pigs in order to boost his profit margins and the resulting resistant bacteria are now spreading to humans? I could be wrong about that of course since I am not a bacteriologist, so for what other reason would polymyxins resistance be widespread in Chinese pigs and now spreading to humans?
Essentially, yes.
China is one of the world's largest users and producers of colistin for agriculture and veterinary use.
(Source: TFA)
It's the tragedy of the commons. You have a group of sociopathic businesspeople who consider their profits more important than the survival of the human race, so they give prophylactic antibiotics to animals that aren't even sick. The downfall of humanity will be greed.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Republicans and Democrats alike have been promising a solution to run-away health care costs for over 50 years.
I see it as a small win that we finally got something instead of nothing.
Now if the Republicans want to make it better that'd be great.
Too bad they seem more intent on taking away the little that we got.
Dead from antibiotics resistant bacterial infections. 3,000 people died in 9/11 in one particular year.
USA spent $2T on subsequent wars.
So it seems that $100T is "justified" in spending to combat antibiotic resistance, right? (Frankly, I'd be happy to see $20B increase.)
And it pretty much has to be Government supported investment, the market case just isn't there for a drug company to develop new antibiotics. How do you make your billions back from a drug which people just take for a little while, while they are sick?
Drug companies just want to develop drugs that make them lots of money, drugs that people will take every day or will take in huge quantities. So if a drug company DOES develop an antibiotic, they'll soon sell it for agricultural use to help animals gain weight--that's the only way they can ever make money.
Free market economics pretty much dictate that antibiotics will be misused if developed at all, that is why we have to have PUBLIC investment in new antibiotics.
-PeterM
Remember how it was being villified by certain luminaries as leading to "Death Panels"? And when certain folks tried to kill it for being "unconstitutional"? That's the level of sanity of the political environment it was conceived in.
And even now we get posts from people who somehow don't like it (for whatever reason) but who still shy away yanking collective health insurance from a couple of milion people. Couldn't be their sense of ethics getting in the way. They're not like that. Something to do with political fallout I guess.
For better or worse, the insurance companies are simply the privatised face of national health insurance. And privatised means "for-profit". Which in turn means "maximise revenue and minimise expense". Bad news for anyone taking out or trying to claim on insurance. Fair enough. So what's your alternative? Want to set up an NHS-style system in the US? Perhaps sen. Bernie Sanders will look on that idea with favour, but absolutely no-one else will. Also be prepared to be branded a Communist, Socialist, Atheist, Satanist, Jihadist, Terrorist or simply all-round Un-American. Just a warning.
You might want to think about imposing more regulation on those insurance companies. Such as more financial transparency. Or some sort of nation-wide re-insurance. Well, good luck with either idea.
Sorry but in the mean time the ACA is what we've got. Lets try to smooth out its rough edges while we mull over what to replace it with, shall we?
Other than telling the poors to die quickly, what exactly was the Republican plan?
Americans are fine with giving trillions to the banks (Communism) and giving billions per year to big agribusiness (export subsidies=Communism) and having public roads (Communism), but don't you dare have publicly funded medicare. The biggest issue is many Americans have no idea what Socialism is, and don't recognize it when it's shoved down their throats.