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Bacteria Becoming Resistant To Hospital Disinfectants, Warn Scientists (theguardian.com)
Hospitals will need to use new strategies to tackle bacteria experts have warned, after finding a type of hospital superbug is becoming increasingly tolerant of alcohol -- the key component of current disinfectant hand rubs. From a report: Handwashes based on alcohols such as isopropanol have become commonplace as a method of infection control. But while the move has been linked to benefits, including a fall in rates of hospital infections of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), new research suggests it might also have had unexpected consequences. Scientists say they have discovered that superbugs known as vancomycin-resistant enterococci, or VRE, appear to be becoming more tolerant to alcohol.
If the bugs go blind, they might have more difficulties to infect us.
LOTS of people die there..
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
"Bacteria Becoming Resistant To Hospital Disinfectants, Warn Scientists" - I don't like the fact they are becoming resistant, but at least they had the decency to warn us about it.
Handwashes based on alcohols such as isopropanol have become commonplace as a method of infection control.
Forget isopropanol, I'm saturating everything to whisky. You bugs can have the outside, I'm going to take care of my insides.
Is anybody surprised? We used it for everything, and now the survivors are coming back with a vengeance. (Actually just coming back immune -- anthropomorphism is for zombies.)
If only we could take the Religious Never-Evolvers and mate them with the Flat-Earthers -- then we could push them all off the edge of the Earth to be closer to God. (Or that giant turtle. Same thing. Hope he's not a snapping turtle.)
If the universe is someone's simulation -- does that mean the stars are just stuck pixels?
What we need to do is find a suitable bacteriophage variant that can obliterate MRSA. It's not a permanent fix but it will buy us more time to figure out how to engineer bacteriophages.
Bacteriophages and eventually engineered bacteriophages seem like the likely future for fighting bacterial infection. It also seems like machine learning would be a good fit for developing bacteriophage variants when resistant mutations are found.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
An isopropyl alcohol bath is resoundingly insufficient to sterilize surgical instruments. This has been known for decades. Likewise, nobody in their right mind assumes a quick wipe with an alcohol pad will make your skin sterile either. Thus this news story adds nothing really new, except that some MRSA bugs may have become somewhat more resistant to a halfhearted swat of alcohol. Stop the presses...
I believe the disinfectant used here are around 60%, so there's still a good bit of room before they are threatened.
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This doesn't solve the hand wash problem, but I think hospitals should try cleaning with a steam vapor cleaner. An industrial-quality steam cleaner is not that expensive, and it just takes water and electricity to run. And I don't think there are many germs that can survive temperatures higher than the boiling point of water.
Industrial steam cleaners can reach temperatures of over 340 degrees F (171 degrees C) inside their boilers, but what matters is the temperature of the steam when it exits the cleaning wand, and that can easily be 215 to 230 degrees F (101 to 110 degrees C).
Here's an article about a test at University of Washington: https://www.asumag.com/maintenance/steaming-clean
I personally bought a consumer-grade steam cleaner (a Vapamore MR-100) and I have been happy with it. I bought it to kill some mold without using chemicals and it worked perfectly.
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Whatever's not done already:
1. Find out how various disinfectants work at the cellular level.
2. Select 3 or 4 different ones that are otherwise fairly safe, but that operate in very different ways.
3. Mix them into a new product.
4. Use it.
See, simultaneous adaptation across multiple (say, four) different sterilization vectors (this would work for internal antibiotics too) is like throwing down four poles onto an adaptation space and hope they all form an octopus x on the same point.
Invent a new, use until it doesn't work, repeat, is a failure mode. You are literally doing the best optimal way to make germ killers be useless as fast as possible.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Tardigrades do pretty well under UV.
If they ever decide to harm humans we're in real trouble.
The word "kill" for bacteria circulates because of marketing.
The best way to "anything" a bacteria is to slough the supporting substances. A sponge doesn't magically purify dishes, it just ablates them. Removes the stains and layers and deposits that host growth. We're in this situation because we sold appeal on using "holy and sanctifying" products, as if the crud on your hands merely needs to be "sanitized". See how well that shit works after working on a car engine.
Parent, your point was correct, but the population is being stupid for a more basic reason upstream.
Create a bacteria that is resistant to everything. Go extinct. Let the bacteria evolve into a new super human race.
Bleach isn't an appropriate solution (pun intended) for "disinfectant hand rubs". However, in my opinion, the correct way to 'solve' this problem isn't to find a new disinfectant, but rather, getting all workers to wear gloves / make regular glove changes after touching patients or things patients may have touched.
I had mrsa... and vancomycin via iv...it entered (the mrsa) and infected my blood, artificial stomach, skin, emergency trac site and lungs. four months later I managed to live after all the infection were gone. thank god for vancomycin!
nothing to see here - move along
Most people are resistant to silver nano-particles because they don't like walking around with blue hands...
This is the same BS that happened with penicillin etc.
Yeah, if you give every single farm animal half a dose per day, everything is going to grow resistant.
What a bunch of bullshit.
Farmers aren't as stupid as you think. They know bacteria can get resistance to antibiotics if they are overused. I grew up on a farm and we used antibiotics fairly regularly, but far from daily. Pigs would get a shot of antibiotics when they were brought off the truck into the confinement building. They wouldn't get another shot unless one got sick, and only that one pig would be separate from the rest and get a shot. If the pig improved then it would be returned to the pen with the rest of the pigs. If it didn't improve then it got another shot... from a revolver. The carcass would then be fed to the dogs.
The cattle, like the pigs, typically got one shot of antibiotics in their life. This would happen when they got big enough to dehorn. They'd be run one by one into a dehorn chute where one guy would cut of the horns and another would give a shot of antibiotics. If a cow got sick then it might get a shot of antibiotics, and if it was producing milk at the time the milk would be discarded. If the cow got better then it would be returned to producing milk. If it didn't then it would be sent to the rendering plant for leather and bone meal, the meat would be discarded.
All meat and milk is tested for antibiotics randomly and when there is suspicion of contamination. I'm not aware of any fines imposed but a dairy farmer seeing 1000 gallons of grade A milk get dumped down the drain, and not getting paid for that shipment, is punishment enough.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
The issue is that people are also made of organic matter.
No matter how effective it is, I won't wash my hands with a flamethrower.
Maybe concentrating all the sick people in one place creates a perfect breeding ground for this stuff.
Yes, yes, there are valid economic reasons for maximizing the work output of doctors, who are exceedingly expensive to mint. But at some point, the downfall of our species might just be more costly.
I, for one, welcome our new tardigradian overlords!
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
98% ipa doesn't kill stuff as effectively as weaker ipa. The gp doesn't know what he's talking about in regards to disinfecting clean rooms. Hell he's probably never been in one and only dreamed about it.
https://blog.gotopac.com/2017/05/15/why-is-70-isopropyl-alcohol-ipa-a-better-disinfectant-than-99-isopropanol-and-what-is-ipa-used-for/
Nonsense. Maybe you grew up on some kind of granola organic farm.
Animals in this country have routinely been given feed that is laced with antibiotics because it makes them gain weight faster. You should know that.
That's true about bleach not being appropriate. Unsurprisingly, you'll find there are already bugs out there that can tolerate bleach, at least in the levels you'll find in your non-commercial cleaners and clothes washing bleach. We're dealing with that right now while taking care of an ailing family member at home who is prone to infection. The hospital has confirmed the strain of infection our family member has will be unaffected by low levels of bleach.
in this country. I've been hearing about this for years and nobody's doing much of anything about it. Certainly not enough. Meanwhile in the United States we've got a resurgence of things like Faith Healers and the like (plus numbskulls pushing Homeopathy and "Essential Oils"). It doesn't help that we don't have universal healthcare so I know a ton of people turned away from science because they just plain can't afford medical care. Faith Healers & Homeopathy are still cheaper than a doctor visit over here. And don't get me started on the number of folks I knew who saved antibiotics for the next time they got sick because it costs $200 bucks to have a doctor write the script...
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What if they just blue themselves?
Ezekiel 23:20
This...
I'm a farm boy and I can attest this is pretty much true. Antibiotics are not generally routine, but special occasion things, used when the health of the animal is open to question or could possibly be compromised by some necessary procedure. Antibiotics are expensive and it takes labor to administer them, so they are not used indiscriminately. Farmers don't have money to waste.
Testing of milk is done by the truck load too. When the truck arrives at the farm, they take samples for testing. When the truck arrives at the plant, they sample and test again. It doesn't go into the plant but down the drain if it doesn't pass any of those tests. And if it's YOUR milk that causes the truck to get dumped, it's not a good thing for you.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
The Chevron brand seems to work as well.
Maybe mix it with a strong oxidizer. NOT hydrogen peroxide, as the body uses that as a defense, but say ammonium nitrate. Nitric acid would work, but might have undesirable effects.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
And who do we have to blame for this state off affairs?
Why the poultry industry of course who decided it was a good idea to use a last line human defense anti-biotic to reduce the gut bacteria of chickens so they would grow faster.
So there is a consequences of us allowing these cunts to be cunts to the humble chicken.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
No, I'm talking about antibiotics specifically added to increase weight gain.
They are gradually trying to curtail this, but until recently it has been very common. In particular, the GP claim that "when I grew up, cows only got one shot of antibiotics in their life!" is simply disingenuous.
Looks like we're going to have to start washing our hands after we've been to the toilet. The number of people who don't do this is frightening. It's not just that your hand has touched your dick or your vag or whatever, it's that you're not washing your hands at all during the day, then preparing food or eating with your hands, or touching door handles that others have touched, or coughed into your hand, or let the dog lick your hand etc. People who don't wash their hands after going to the toilet should be treated the same as anti-vaxxers.
Give it up already.
Infection control in about every hospital I've set foot in in the last 14 years will tell you hand sanitizer doesn't do shit for VRE - wash your hands.
Chewbacon
The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
The issue is they are not cleaning. You clean, then sanitize (or disinfect). If the surfaces are dirty, bacteria can 'hide' or be protected in the dirt. Doctors performing surgery scrub in using soap and vigorously scrub, then they use a sanitizer (or even hot water). When you wash dishes, do you just run them under hot water or do you clean them (with soap) first ?
Alcohol kills 99.9% of bacteria. “We found that the new isolates, post-2010, were 10 times more tolerant to alcohol exposure than the earlier isolates" is the quote they're using. So...that's still not enough to infect someone. now I know that 99.9% of a blanket rate for all bacteria combined but still, 1000x would be concerning, not 10x. Although this does seem incredibly odd. Alcohol has been used to kill bacteria for what,10,000 years for billions of humans? It's such basic cellular chemistry it's like saying bacteria are becoming resistant to 200 degree heat. It just simply cannot happen. Maybe by some fluke they're 10x more resistant but I seriously doubt that it will progress a whole lot further than that. It's not chemically possible. The materials that would make up the bacteria's cells would be SO different and SO exotic at that point, it probably wouldn't even be able to interact with a human body anymore.
Agreed. I think eventually this will evolve into remote diagnoses and treatments. There's no need to physically interact with a patient if you can have a set of remotely controlled robotic arms do it instead.
This reminds me of a big scandal in Romania involving a firm called Hexi Pharma who was the major distributor of dissinfectants to all .ro hospitals.
They were found to dillute the cleaning substances so they sell more to the hospitals in the last 10 years or so.
This of course coincides in time with the situation described in TFA. ...
You may have misunderstood what they said about bleach concentration. Bleach is almost never used full strength. Rather, it is diluted to something in the neighborhood of 500-5000 ppm available chlorine. This corresponds to a 1-10% solution of household bleach. You can bump it up by adding more bleach, or acidifying the solution to reach a neutral pH.
Straight bleach is not used in a typical disinfection scenario. It is too strong. Is causes corrosion. It has fumes. (I did read that undiluted bleach is recommended for cleaning syringes, however.)
So if you need to deal with bugs that aren't affected by a standard strength of bleach, that's because standard strength is diluted by 99%.
A cat can't teach a dog to bark.
And to add a bit more, a 1% solution of bleach is still considered pretty strong. I use a 0.15% solution for to sanitize for homebrewing. So if you have trouble with "standard strength", you still have a few orders of magnitude available. (And these percents represent the percent commercial bleach in water, not percent of hypochlorite in water. So a bottle of bleach is 100%.)
A cat can't teach a dog to bark.
And watch them die from delerium tremens
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I was thinking maybe it is time for a whole new strategy for managing infection. Trying to prevent 100% of infections is failing, as TFA illustrates. perhaps a different approach of allowing less dangerous infections in order to crowd out the resistant strains. Or somehow deliberately cultivating non-harmful strains. In how many other fields of endeavor do we manage a risk rather than uselessly strive to 100% prevent it? Also, hospitals are extremely hidebound organizations in my experience, thanks mainly to doctors who never leave adolescence and thus think they already know everything.
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When I worked at a dairy bottling plant, I once overheard an argument between the chemist, who said the milk didn't pass the test, and a manager, who said it could be re-pasteurized and made into chocolate milk. Based on what I saw them using to make chocolate milk (like milk from bottles that had been rejected because they were leaking, and that had been sitting in the hot plant for hours) I'd guess they probably made chocolate milk out of it.
You're already crawling with bacteria: you can't colonize yourself with harmless bacteria to keep safe from the harmful ones... you are already colonized. The harmful strains can share the plasmids with the genes to cause illness with other strains, as well.
If they ever decide to harm humans we're in real trouble.
What would they do? Would they make us watch Star Trek - Discovery?
On second thought, that would be pretty bad.