Evolution always wins
Dr. Arjun Srinivasan: We’ve Reached “The End of Antibiotics, Period”
201–210 of 414 posts
Re: Dr. Arjun Srinivasan: We’ve Reached “The End of Antibiotics, Period”
#202Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, the talk of desire is clearly personification that's not meant to be taken literally.
"Desire" implies that the bacteria is acting purposefully and planning ahead. This isn't what's happening unless you attribute the bacteria's activity to some sort of intelligence. On the contrary, we eliminated smallpox which was one of the most devastating diseases in history so this fatalism is basically disproved. More depressingly, we've also made extinct thousands of species who have not evolved to resist us.
we eliminated smallpox which was one of the most devastating diseases in history so this fatalism is basically disproved
Smallpox was not eliminated with antibiotics, and nor was polio. Both are viruses, and both were eliminated with vaccines.
Re: Dr. Arjun Srinivasan: We’ve Reached “The End of Antibiotics, Period”
#203For the past half century, we should have been treating our antibiotics like weapons of mass destruction - tools of last resort only to be used in emergencies, with great hesitation, and only when absolutely necessary. The industry and the doctors responded: antibiotics were too profitable and the risk seemed too distant. Now we have no weapons; we're helpless and the world is again going to be a scary place where a…
Being somewhat pessimistic here. As someone who actively hacks DNA, I believe that we can address this problem responsibly with the development of new and novel antibiotics for antibiotic-resistant bacteria. There are significant challenges in the biology but there is technology being developed that will significantly reduce the cost and time needed to develop new antibodies.
For example, my company TeselaGen (http://teselagen.com) has developed a cloud based platform for biologists to design, build, and test a large combinatorial set of DNA constructs. Some of our customers use our software today to easily and effectively test an incredible number of DNA devices for identifying and developing useful antibodies.If you have an understanding of genetics and cloning you can try out the software yourself.
Re: Dr. Arjun Srinivasan: We’ve Reached “The End of Antibiotics, Period”
#20480% of the antibiotics we use are given to animals.[1] That seems like a good place to cut back. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/04/health/use-of-antibiotics-...
Of course, they're given to animals to keep them healthy enough so we can eat them. If you cut back on keeping them healthy, you're cutting the amount of food available for human consumption. I recently re-read the fantastic Ishmael[1] which does a fantastic job of explaining the crazy things we've done to increase our food supply in the last 10,000 years. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishmael_%28novel%29
> If you cut back on keeping them healthy, you're cutting the amount of food available for human consumption.
You are cutting the amount of meat and dairy available for human consumption, not food. Eating animal products is not a terribly efficient way of getting nutrients.
Re: Dr. Arjun Srinivasan: We’ve Reached “The End of Antibiotics, Period”
#20580% of the antibiotics we use are given to animals.[1] That seems like a good place to cut back. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/04/health/use-of-antibiotics-...
There's a bill introduced in the Senate that would restrict antibiotics that are approved in humans from being used in agricultural in a prophylactic way.[1] A similar bill has been introduced in the House[2] by Rep. Louise Slaughter who has degrees in microbiology and public health. Given the pernicious and undemocratic over-representation of rural interests embodied in the structure of the Senate, I don't expect th…
Given the pernicious and undemocratic over-representation of rural interests embodied in the structure of the Senate, I don't expect them to go anywhere.
I'm sure the rural interests have the same thing to say about urban interests & the House. Which, really, means things are working as intended.
Re: Dr. Arjun Srinivasan: We’ve Reached “The End of Antibiotics, Period”
#206The interviewed expert has very good credentials and clinical experience to be talking about what he is talking about, and his warnings should be taken seriously. But even at that, the fallacious teleological language he uses about biological evolution by natural selection suggests a way out of this problem. When he says, "Bacteria, like any living organism, want to survive," and "So anything that we do to try and ki…
Is there any indication that the organisms we have "stolen" antibiotic molecules from might become themselves suffer disruption from bacteria that they can no longer kill? Fungi are involved in many symbiotic relationships that we indirectly depend on, for example the fixation of nitrogen for plant growth. One imagines a future in which we have a dwindling supply of biodiversity to 'sacrifice' in order to keep oursel…
I've wondered about that. But the antibiotics we use medically are only a small fraction of the antibiotics in nature, because the others are toxic or otherwise unsuitable to use as drugs. So the fungi probably have backups.
It might make sense to speak of an antibiotic peak, like we speak of peak oil. I wonder if you could draw the same kind of curve.
Re: Dr. Arjun Srinivasan: We’ve Reached “The End of Antibiotics, Period”
#207Earlier quoted context omitted.
> we're helpless and the world is again going to be a scary place Whoa there. According to the article, we have few new antibiotics precisely because the old ones have been so effective: >Infections are not that common compared to other types of conditions like high blood pressure or high cholesterol. [...] They have to develop drugs that will make money, and that’s not an antibiotic. When we had lots of development…
I suppose that's true, but it seems like a perverse incentive to me. Drug companies have a financial incentive to wait for people to die rather than taking action that will prevent people from dying.
Really? The most profitable drug ever is Lipitor which is entirely based on reducing the threat of future health problems. High cholesterol does nothing to you in a short timeframe, but will greatly increase your likelihood of death 20-30 years from now.
Re: Dr. Arjun Srinivasan: We’ve Reached “The End of Antibiotics, Period”
#20880% of the antibiotics we use are given to animals.[1] That seems like a good place to cut back. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/04/health/use-of-antibiotics-...
Antibiotics in animal farms should be banned world wide. Unfortunate the only nation who has the power to convince others joining this ban, is one of the worst abusers of antibiotics. Consumers might have a choice, if they are wealthy enough to afford it. If you are a beef consumer, eat beef from Namibia, where antibiotics for animals are banned, and avoid US or South Africa. Ask you butcher, if he can offer antibiot…
Antibiotics in animal farms should be banned world wide.
Why? The problem isn't giving antibiotics to animals. Antibiotics are useful for animals the same way they are useful for controlling disease in humans. The problem is abuse of antibiotics.
Re: Dr. Arjun Srinivasan: We’ve Reached “The End of Antibiotics, Period”
#209While most view colloidal silver as quackery, the fact is that using silver in colloidal form along with other medicine administered at the same time, was standard practice 80 years ago. Perhaps silver in nanoparticle form will make a comeback, as bacteria don't seem to be as able to survive the cell wall disruption that silver can cause.
I am thinking the term "quackery" is for example probably a bit too broad.
Re: Dr. Arjun Srinivasan: We’ve Reached “The End of Antibiotics, Period”
#210Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it's a bit pedantic to argue about his usage of "desire". Evolution is a blind watchmaker. The bacteria are reacting to selective pressures. Large populations of bacteria around the world are getting exposed to different kinds of antibiotics. It's not a matter of "if" they will acquire resistance, but "when", and we're seeing this happening right now. The fact that lines of bacteria go extinct does nothing to…
I have never heard of bacteriophages before. Doing some light research, I found their protein/body structures to look almost machine-like. Very fascinating stuff. From Wikipedia's Bacteriophage page: "Medical trials were carried out, but a basic lack of understanding of phages made these invalid". I seriously hope alternatives like bacteriophages are being revisited and reconsidered within the medical community, as i…
Bacteriophages are very much the answer to the titular problem. Instead of finding tiny little lethal molecules, we will likely end up actually designing machine-like phages to kill the causes of our illnesses. They're easy to select for, quite good at what they do, and are some of the most approachable objects in synthetic biology, currently. And they are much more amenable to continued use than the 3 or 4 scaffoldings of antibiotics (small molecules) that we know of today.