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My Husband Became a Poster Child of the Post-Antibiotic Era

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Re: My Husband Became a Poster Child of the Post-Antibiotic Era

#91

Post by hollerith »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #89
mrob wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this is true, why doesn't it show up in paintings? Your source is written by a "color expert", not a historian, and she cites no evidence. The veins showing through pale skin theory sounds more likely to me.

Paintings were very expensive, upper class commodities. They frequently idealized their subjects. One British king had portraits delivered to him of a potential mate and was disappointed when she showed up and wasn't as attractive as her portrait. One source mocked him for it, saying he should have realized it was probably idealized, after all, it was his own portrait artist he sent, a guy who had been making him loo…

The one person I know who probably has argyria has dark-grey skin with a very slightly bluish tint.

Re: My Husband Became a Poster Child of the Post-Antibiotic Era

#92

Post by DoreenMichele »

benj111 wrote: post #84
DoreenMichele wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The very article we are discussing talks about a man getting an antibiotic resistant infection in Egypt, then being flown to Germany and eventually the US with the infection still unresolved. It terms it "Iraqibacter" and gives a brief origin of this class of microbes as starting in the Middle East and being exported to Europe and America. So if that line you quoted is getting me downvotes, then everyone downvoting m…

The quoted comment could read as just blaming poorer people etc, which is how I read it at first, after further digging the comment seems justified. Reading your comment I can't see another reason for the downvote, and antibiotic resistance being more common in developing nations wasn't something I was that aware of, so I was confirming to others you aren't being racist or anything. Maybe they should have done their…

It is not a sample size of one. She gave the history of a thing common enough to have a nickname.

so I was confirming to others you aren't being racist or anything.

Thank you.

Re: My Husband Became a Poster Child of the Post-Antibiotic Era

#93

Post by NyashMyash »

rini17 wrote: post #81
NyashMyash wrote: post #73

I'm russian. And for me this article sounds completely idiotic - phage research was always ongoing in SU and literally everyone is aware of the alternative to antibiotics. At the moment there are lab networks available across all the modern russia where you may take a test and find a best phage to your bacterias. One of several mass-produced phages. Moreover, if you dig into soviet medicine, you may find several awes…

Is it possible to order some to the EU? I'm having unfortunate combination of staph infection+ ciprofloxacin intolerance.

I guess it's not. But you may ask a russian pharmacy to prepare two boxes for you then visit the country and pick the order. The names in russian are: "антифагин стафилококковый" and "анатоксин стафилококковый очищенный адсорбированный". In case you decide go this way I would suggest you to use second one according to "blood donor" scheme (3 shots of 2ml, one ml into each shoulderblade, with 2 week intervals) and increase all dosages for the first one for 0.2ml (so, ten shot in ten days, one shot each day, starting from 0.3ml and ending with 1.2). You may use insulin syringe for first one, for second one you would need some assistance and usual syringe but in worst case you may use insulin one too.

Disclaimer: consult your doctor first, it's just a random advice from internets, blah-blah.

Re: My Husband Became a Poster Child of the Post-Antibiotic Era

#94

Post by NyashMyash »

StreamBright wrote: post #88
rini17 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it possible to order some to the EU? I'm having unfortunate combination of staph infection+ ciprofloxacin intolerance.

https://www.rbth.com/lifestyle/326184-foreigner-medical-assi...

These things (st. vaccinces) are mostly unknown to usual russian doctors, they are produced for farm workers. A typical therapist wouldn't prescribe you that stuff - they are not aware of their existence. Again - russians doctors are idiots, but there is some amazing soviet legacy you may greatly benefit from. And you don't _really_ need a prescription to buy the stuff.

Re: My Husband Became a Poster Child of the Post-Antibiotic Era

#95

Post by AllegedAlec »

ddebernardy wrote: post #82
AllegedAlec wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This article yet again reports on the lack of awareness about bacteriophages in the medical community. A shortlist of answers: - Bacteriophages are evolutionarily close to viruses. Their proteins will resemble viral proteins, so the body will most likely initiate an immune response against it. - Bacteriophages are really quite specific in what they'll infect. This makes them much less useful as an antibacterial. Yo…

Those are all potentially valid reasons to not pay much attention to it as a solution for multi-resistant bacteria. However, none of them explain why medical professionals are not even aware that bacteriophages are a thing, in contrast with laypeople like the parent poster (or myself, and presumably many more on HN since there have been a few articles on this topic over the years).

> why medical professionals are not even aware that bacteriophages are a thing

Sounds questionable to me that this is even the cause, to be honest. However, assuming this is true, the main reason I could think for why would be the case if this: medicine is an extremely specialised field. Not only do you focus solely on the human body, but not even the body as a whole, but on what can go wrong with it. The only knowledge a medical professional needs about bacteria, viruses and other pathogens is what they require for them to be diagnozed, what kind of illnesses they convey and how they can be gotten rid of. And not even this is accurate, because within the field of medicine there's even further specialisation into even smaller sub-fields.

That there are also viruses which infect bacteria is of no (direct) importance on the medical field. In fact, it'd frankly be a waste of time for them during their study to learn about phages in any detail. The basic degree alone is already very long and full to the point of bursting. It'd be similar to expecting welders to understand the minutea of all states of matter, because TIG welding uses plasma to melt metal.

Re: My Husband Became a Poster Child of the Post-Antibiotic Era

#96

Post by basetop »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #35

Why aren’t all hospital surfaces coated with silver?

Better yet, why don't we have mobile hospital units. Rather than bringing all the sick people and disease into one place, why not go to the place of sickness. Perhaps it's economically not feasible, but I've always it made more sense.

Re: My Husband Became a Poster Child of the Post-Antibiotic Era

#97

Post by NyashMyash »

StreamBright wrote: post #85

I wish there were a nanotechnology startup that would address MRSA. In theory, you can develop nanobots that attack specific types of bacteria. Not sure if this would work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bQhGS8V6dQ

You don't need nanorobots.

You may just pick old soviet vaccines and resolve this particular problem (see my other post in this topic).

Also there are a lot of great antibiotics (see epimerox) which still aren't on the market because of many different reasons.

Re: My Husband Became a Poster Child of the Post-Antibiotic Era

#98

Post by riahi »

whytaka wrote: post #58

It’s been a number of years now that I have become aware of MRSA and superbugs. The moment I read on this is also the moment I have come to be aware of phage therapy as a promising path of overcoming this new threat. This article yet again reports on the lack of awareness about bacteriophages in the medical community. I just can’t understand why it is like that. I, an idiot, have heard about it. How do people, who se…

I don’t think it’s fair to say there is a lack of awareness that bacteriophages-as-concept exist. Most curricula in medical school will touch on these. However, what is more of a realistic lack of awareness is the ability to request bacteriophage therapy for a specific patient. It’s not something that has been thoroughly vetted or solved as a scalable solution because there’s a lot of technical hurdles. The closest approved therapy that is somewhat similar to what phage therapy would involve is CAR-T cell creation, and this is wildly expensive and resource intensive.

To give a somewhat comparable example, it’s more like someone saying asking why the average programmer doesn’t know anything about quantum computers as a solution for critical cryptographic problems.

Re: My Husband Became a Poster Child of the Post-Antibiotic Era

#99

Post by esyir »

AllegedAlec wrote: post #77
armada651 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You'd spend a lot of time and money on making one that would infect your mrsa strain, and mrsa would probably just start the arms race, leaving you back at the start. Actually developing resistance against bacteriophages requires such invasive changes that most bacteria that develop it lose resistance against anti-biotics. That is why an anti-biotic therapy is often used together with a phage therapy.

> Actually developing resistance against bacteriophages requires such invasive changes that most bacteria that develop it lose resistance against anti-biotics It requires some huge changes, sure. However, MRSA exists because Staph was able to adapt to be resistant to multiple antibiotics at the same time . There is no reason to assume that it could not adapt to become resistant to the phage used as well as some of th…

You also get the evolutionary war between the virus and the bacteria. That should help out.

Re: My Husband Became a Poster Child of the Post-Antibiotic Era

#100

Post by ajuc »

whytaka wrote: post #58

It’s been a number of years now that I have become aware of MRSA and superbugs. The moment I read on this is also the moment I have come to be aware of phage therapy as a promising path of overcoming this new threat. This article yet again reports on the lack of awareness about bacteriophages in the medical community. I just can’t understand why it is like that. I, an idiot, have heard about it. How do people, who se…

I think it's like with quantum computers. Average programmer knows they are there, but also knows it's decades before they are usable for everyday stuff.
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