That's very nice and uplifting, but it would be great if some sources were provided. Like, who did the work? Where was it done? Where it was published? As it is, it is next to impossible to look into further.
Antibiotics Are Dead; Long Live Antibiotics
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Re: Antibiotics Are Dead; Long Live Antibiotics
#12It's a good news/bad news scenario. Good news is that we've potentially found a new way to create antibiotics. The bad news is that it took us so long to think of it and millions more might die of new diseases before we can finally get efficacy at scale out of these techniques.
> The bad news is that it took us so long to think of it and millions more might die of new diseases before we can finally get efficacy at scale out of these techniques.
This isn't new, though, that's just reality before this discovery—if we can't use our existing antibiotics we're screwed.
Re: Antibiotics Are Dead; Long Live Antibiotics
#13Why is it fine to use antibiotics to kill bacteria, but it's currently not fine to use a gun and kill a homo sapiens? When you look at cities, it looks like an infection on the planet Earth. Why isn't that treated as a disease and proposals made to start working on a method that would exterminate humans, because humans are a disease to this planet and other life forms?
Re: Antibiotics Are Dead; Long Live Antibiotics
#14One thing to consider is Antibiotics are not actually need very often. I had intestional surgery a while back and they never put me on a course of antibiotics. Now they probably gave me a shot of something in surgery, but we can do a lot to minimize the risks without them.
They are often used as a crutch and end up promoting sloppy technique. Basically infections are a sign you did something wrong, removing that feedback promotes problems.
Re: Antibiotics Are Dead; Long Live Antibiotics
#15That's very nice and uplifting, but it would be great if some sources were provided. Like, who did the work? Where was it done? Where it was published? As it is, it is next to impossible to look into further.
I gave a popular science reference in another comment:
http://www.popsci.com/ichip-new-way-find-antibiotics-and-oth...
From that you should have enough keywords to chase up papers, labs, other discussion, etc.
Re: Antibiotics Are Dead; Long Live Antibiotics
#16There are plenty of docters who treat a C diff infection with PRObiotics, i.e. let good bacteries kill the bad bacteries. So do not worry and go to a doctor that practises functional medicine.
Re: Antibiotics Are Dead; Long Live Antibiotics
#17That's very nice and uplifting, but it would be great if some sources were provided. Like, who did the work? Where was it done? Where it was published? As it is, it is next to impossible to look into further.
I gave a popular science reference in another comment: http://www.popsci.com/ichip-new-way-find-antibiotics-and-oth... From that you should have enough keywords to chase up papers, labs, other discussion, etc.
Re: Antibiotics Are Dead; Long Live Antibiotics
#18Obligatory George Carlin "fear of germs" link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnmMNdiCz_s
4th time posted to HN
Re: Antibiotics Are Dead; Long Live Antibiotics
#19Am I the only one who thought this part was weird?
"And as if that were not enough, here’s the kicker. This was not some kind of massive high-throughput screen of the kind we so often hear about in biomedical research these days. The researchers tried this approach just once, in essentially their back yard, on a very small scale, and it STILL worked the first time. What that tells us is that it can work again—and again, and again"
Why is the fact that it happened once, at a small scale, in a relatively uncontrolled situation, supposed to engender confidence? The point of science is doing it many times, at large scale, in a repeatable fashion. That's when we have confidence in the way things work.
Re: Antibiotics Are Dead; Long Live Antibiotics
#20"But this pessimism rests entirely on one assumption: that we have no realistic prospect of developing new classes of antibiotics any time soon, antibiotics that our major threats have not yet seen and thus not acquired resistance to." Uh, no. The "pessimism" (as it were) doesn't extend from that assumption. It extends from the fact that very few people are doing the basic research anymore, and even fewer companies a…
When people will start dying en masse from this you'll see how suddenly the priorities will change. Sure, it's a tragedy right now that the incentives are not properly aligned, but I wouldn't worry about doomsday scenarios.