Antibiotic resistance and our deportation to Victorian times

Started by Fidel_Castronaut, March 11, 2013, 10:40:10 AM

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Fidel_Castronaut

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/scien ... 28469.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-21737844

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs194/en/

http://www.reactgroup.org/news/182/18.html

http://antibiotic-action.com/2011/11/11 ... ng-street/

Antibioitic resistance is becoming an increasingly worrying and damaging facet of contemporary drug use and availability. The UK media has been focusing on it leading up to the G8 summit, and the WHO has been calling on governments from all economic backgrounds to limit the amount available to people over the counter for general consumption due to the ever growing risk of strains evolving that are resistant to all know antibioitics.

At the current rate, it is estimated, within 20 years even the most common forms of bacteria such as ecoli and salmonella will have a multitude of strains that will be completely untreatable, meaning illnesses and operations that are perfectly common place today could become fatal (such as hip replacements or minor keyhole surgery).

My fiancé is actually a microbiologist in the field here in the UK, and it is desperately underfunded.

When people talk about real imminent threats to our way of life, I think this could accurately fit into that catagory. A big problem, as mentioned, is the availability of over the counter antibioitics throughout the world, notably in states like Saudi Arabia and India (but not exclusive), where people take them for illnesses that cannot be treated by them, or are using theme ineffectively and without proper prescription and oversight. Ask people whether they take antibioitics when they have the flu, and I've no doubt at least 50% would say 'yes' or think that's how antibioitics work.

Mass availability is causing mass resistance, and increasingly people are dying due to contracting bacteria that simply ignore all forms of treatment against them (for the technically minded, we're talking about a year on year increase in bacteria displaying gram-negative traits in new strains).

More worrying is the massive overuse of antibioitics in farm animals which also leads to resistance in bacteria, but arguably on an even larger scale.

(On a side note, people in the UK may even see my partner on tv today as various news networks are going into her lab to interview her supervisor at Birmingham Uni.)
lol, marquee. HTML ROOLZ!

Agramon

Looks like I made a good choice getting into bacteriophage therapy!
"And, tricked by our own early dream
And need of solace, we grew self-deceived,
Our making soon our maker did we deem,
And what we had imagined we believed."
- Thomas Hardy

NitzWalsh

If only those creationists were right, we wouldn't have to worry about bacteria evolving so much.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
~ Arthur C. Clarke

Colanth

Quote from: "NitzWalsh"If only those creationists were right, we wouldn't have to worry about bacteria evolving so much.
They're not evolving, they're still bacteria.  (And a fish laying an egg that hatched into a man would still just be an animal producing an animal.)
Afflicting the comfortable for 70 years.
Science builds skyscrapers, faith flies planes into them.

Seabear

"There is a saying in the scientific community, that every great scientific truth goes through three phases. First, people deny it. Second, they say it conflicts with the Bible. Third, they say they knew it all along."

- Neil deGrasse Tyson

GurrenLagann

Quote from: "Colanth"
Quote from: "NitzWalsh"If only those creationists were right, we wouldn't have to worry about bacteria evolving so much.
They're not evolving, they're still bacteria.  (And a fish laying an egg that hatched into a man would still just be an animal producing an animal.)

Edit: Looool. I took that seriously at first. xD Don't mind me.
Which means that to me the offer of certainty, the offer of complete security, the offer of an impermeable faith that can\'t give way, is the offer of something not worth having.
[...]
Take the risk of thinking for yourself. Much more happiness, truth, beauty & wisdom, will come to you that way.
-Christopher Hitchens

NitzWalsh

Quote from: "GurrenLagann"
Quote from: "Colanth"
Quote from: "NitzWalsh"If only those creationists were right, we wouldn't have to worry about bacteria evolving so much.
They're not evolving, they're still bacteria.  (And a fish laying an egg that hatched into a man would still just be an animal producing an animal.)

Edit: Looool. I took that seriously at first. xD Don't mind me.

Haha, yeah, I'm glad I'm still awake enough to realize Colanth was joking.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
~ Arthur C. Clarke

SGOS

Quote from: "Fidel_Castronaut"When people talk about real imminent threats to our way of life, I think this could accurately fit into that catagory. A big problem, as mentioned, is the availability of over the counter antibioitics throughout the world, notably in states like Saudi Arabia and India (but not exclusive), where people take them for illnesses that cannot be treated by them, or are using theme ineffectively and without proper prescription and oversight. Ask people whether they take antibioitics when they have the flu, and I've no doubt at least 50% would say 'yes' or think that's how antibioitics work.
Even in the US, just tell your doctor you are convinced that antibiotics will cure your cold, and you can get a prescription.  Doctors know better of course, but false beliefs about antibiotics are so widely held that doctors know they will lose the patronage of a large portion of the potential client base if they don't comply with such popular opinions.  Not all doctors, but finding the right one isn't much harder than shopping for your correct shoe size.

Icarus

When people start dying in droves she will get funding, but not until then.

The Skeletal Atheist

If we're getting back the fatality of diseases from Victorian times can we at least get back some of the more awesome and stupidly dangerous medical devices as well?

This nifty thing was used to take out tonsils.
Some people need to be beaten with a smart stick.

Kein Mehrheit Fur Die Mitleid!

Kein Mitlied F�r Die Mehrheit!

Fidel_Castronaut

Quote from: "drunkenshoe"I have watched this on news. It's indeed bad.

And also it is always baffling to me to see people jumping on antibiotics when they get a runny nose for two days.

Lack of education/stupidity/mixture of both?
Quote from: "The Skeletal Atheist"If we're getting back the fatality of diseases from Victorian times can we at least get back some of the more awesome and stupidly dangerous medical devices as well?
[ Image ]
This nifty thing was used to take out tonsils.

lol
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Mermaid

Quote from: "Agramon"Looks like I made a good choice getting into bacteriophage therapy!
Looks like.
A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticise work which the critic himself never tries to perform, an intellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life’s realities â€" all these are marks, not as the possessor would fain to think, of superiority but of weakness. -TR

Mermaid

Quote from: "Colanth"
Quote from: "NitzWalsh"If only those creationists were right, we wouldn't have to worry about bacteria evolving so much.
They're not evolving, they're still bacteria.  (And a fish laying an egg that hatched into a man would still just be an animal producing an animal.)
um. What?
A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticise work which the critic himself never tries to perform, an intellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life’s realities â€" all these are marks, not as the possessor would fain to think, of superiority but of weakness. -TR

Mermaid

I gave blood today therefore I am stupid. That is my excuse and I am sticking to it.
A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticise work which the critic himself never tries to perform, an intellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life’s realities â€" all these are marks, not as the possessor would fain to think, of superiority but of weakness. -TR

Colanth

Quote from: "Mermaid"
Quote from: "Colanth"
Quote from: "NitzWalsh"If only those creationists were right, we wouldn't have to worry about bacteria evolving so much.
They're not evolving, they're still bacteria.  (And a fish laying an egg that hatched into a man would still just be an animal producing an animal.)
um. What?
You've never read the Luddite view of evolution?  A bacterium that dies on contact with penicillin changing into one that consumes penicillin is just a bacterium changing its food, it's not evolution.  They're not aware that the claddistic level of "bacteria" is the same as the claddistic level of "animal".
Afflicting the comfortable for 70 years.
Science builds skyscrapers, faith flies planes into them.