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The antimicrobial resistance crisis needs action now

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Re: The antimicrobial resistance crisis needs action now

#21

Post by YLYvYkHeB2NRNT »

xahrepap wrote: post #9
mustafabisic1 wrote: post #2

I bet all those antibiotics prescribed for covid didn't help as well. That was happening on a massive scale in my country

I’m still amazed at how many people are able to get their dr to prescribe them antibiotics just by asking. I knew someone who had a cold and said “but I asked my Dr for some antibiotics and I’m taking DayQuil so I’ll be better in a day or two” Im always left open mouthed gaping at them like… even if YOU don’t know. But at least the Dr should …

US doctors have to do everything to keep patients happy. CMS rules their careers with satisfaction metrics. Hospital ADMINS really push it on them. Complaints lead to job loss.

Re: The antimicrobial resistance crisis needs action now

#23

Post by mschuster91 »

mustafabisic1 wrote: post #2

I bet all those antibiotics prescribed for covid didn't help as well. That was happening on a massive scale in my country

The biggest risk factor when it comes to infection in general is agriculture:

- We encroach ever closer and closer to reservoirs of animal illnesses, which is how we got OG SARS, MERS and Covid.

- We give farm animals prophylactic antibiotics to promote growth or, worse, keep them alive in completely unsanitary conditions, and the conditions in slaughterhouses are often horrible as well. That is not just plain horrible from an animal welfare aspect, but risks breeding superbugs on one side and severe complications should someone not properly cook their meat and not kill off all the bacteria.

- We spread manure from farm animals over produce fields, which regularly causes e.coli / EHEC outbreaks

Antibiotic overuse in humans is only a small part of the problem, simply because the agriculture scale is so much bigger, and even people who go vegan/vegetarian because they want to avoid all the issues with meat production still can't avoid their produce being contaminated.

Re: The antimicrobial resistance crisis needs action now

#24

Post by lofatdairy »

BTW for anyone who wants to help but thinks this is mostly wetlab/drug development work. There's quite a bit of room in the space for the computer-vision side of things to improve decision-making and time to treat. I think it's mostly based on phenotyping by imaging and identifying low-specimen cultures but I might be totally wrong.

Some competitions:

- https://longitudeprize.org/

- https://dpcpsi.nih.gov/AMRChallenge/Finalists

Some previous work using various ML piplines:

- https://phastdiagnostics.com/

- https://acceleratediagnostics.com/publications/

- https://talisbio.com/

Re: The antimicrobial resistance crisis needs action now

#25

Post by flappyeagle »

Brendinooo wrote: post #22

At the risk of sounding ignorant… I’ve been hearing stuff like this for twenty years now. And yet the crisis hasn’t happened. Why is that?

It’s happening. Like climate change, by the time you notice it in the course of your daily existence it’s far too late.

Re: The antimicrobial resistance crisis needs action now

#26

Post by ghastmaster »

YLYvYkHeB2NRNT wrote: post #21
xahrepap wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m still amazed at how many people are able to get their dr to prescribe them antibiotics just by asking. I knew someone who had a cold and said “but I asked my Dr for some antibiotics and I’m taking DayQuil so I’ll be better in a day or two” Im always left open mouthed gaping at them like… even if YOU don’t know. But at least the Dr should …

US doctors have to do everything to keep patients happy. CMS rules their careers with satisfaction metrics. Hospital ADMINS really push it on them. Complaints lead to job loss.

Liability, standard of care, patient happiness, insurance compensation, and stupidity all come to my mind when considering why they do it.

Re: The antimicrobial resistance crisis needs action now

#27

Post by mschuster91 »

seunosewa wrote: post #13
silisili wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even in the US, pre COVID, every time I went to to doctor with a bad cold/flu, they'd just give you a Z Pak(antibiotics) and say...if it's bacterial this will kill it, if it's viral it'll work itself out. So I can definitely see how they're overprescribed.

They are cheaper than the tests to determine whether they're needed.

And yet, people will demand an antibiotic from their doctor even with a test showing it's viral. Partially because school science ed doesn't cover that topic at all, partially because of "folk tales" aka learning from parents who didn't know better, partially because of placebo effect... and ultimately, because people want/need to feel better soon because they can't afford being too sick to work or having to take care for sick children.

In the end it dwarfs against antibiotics in agriculture anyway, but if we want to fix the issue of antibiotic overusage on humans, we need to completely re-think our relationship to work and sickness.

Re: The antimicrobial resistance crisis needs action now

#28

Post by SQueeeeeL »

SonOfLilit wrote: post #20
pazimzadeh wrote: post #18

There are alternatives to antimicrobials being developed. Instead of directly killing bacteria and therefore putting selective pressure on them, you can prevent their ability to bind to host surfaces and wash them away. The best example is probably mannosides, which are high affinity mannose analogues currently in clinical trial in humans for UTI treatment. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22089451/

How is this putting less selection pressure on them?

Not OP, but it's kinda like boiling or alcohol versus poisoning (which is essentially how most drugs work). Certain attack vectors are literally unevolvable, as they would require fundamentally different building blocks to be able to be able to handle, which is too big of a leap for evolution to make.

Re: The antimicrobial resistance crisis needs action now

#29

Post by bee_rider »

SonOfLilit wrote: post #20
pazimzadeh wrote: post #18

There are alternatives to antimicrobials being developed. Instead of directly killing bacteria and therefore putting selective pressure on them, you can prevent their ability to bind to host surfaces and wash them away. The best example is probably mannosides, which are high affinity mannose analogues currently in clinical trial in humans for UTI treatment. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22089451/

How is this putting less selection pressure on them?

I’d guess that since they don’t die, they can go on to reproduce elsewhere.

Re: The antimicrobial resistance crisis needs action now

#30

Post by Rebelgecko »

Brendinooo wrote: post #22

At the risk of sounding ignorant… I’ve been hearing stuff like this for twenty years now. And yet the crisis hasn’t happened. Why is that?

Supposedly MRSA kills like 100k people per year (although maybe a good chunk of those 100k aren't getting any antibiotics at all, so it's not entirely due to resistance)
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