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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

#51

Post by Fomite »

fzeroracer wrote: post #40
spraak wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe that eradication is possible, but I'm curious to hear more what your thoughts are

Eradication is absolutely possible. High enough vaccination rates would help prevent further evolution of viruses, eventually containing them and then removing them provided there aren't alternative vectors like animals or pets. Unfortunately, certain other efforts are compromising this.

It's not at all clear the pertussis vaccine creates a strong and lasting immunity enough to be an eradication target.

Honestly, it's not one of the more promising eradication targets.

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

#52

Post by blago »

concerned209 wrote: post #10

Any recommendations on what an individual could do to help? Organizations to donate to? Challenges that could be tackled by a startup? Promising companies to consider investing in? Also, can anybody explain why the CDC doesn’t mandate reporting?

Antibiotic company stocks have been decimated in the last couple of years so if you feel adventurous and prepared to lose your savings, this is a great time to buy.

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

#53

Post by Stratoscope »

gumby wrote: post #15

One factor that will return once people start to panic is table manners, many of which seem fussy (separate saving utensils, a butter knife, not putting used utensils onto the table) but actually evolved for hygiene reasons. Sadly of course like any complex behavior it was also hijacked for sumptuary purposes (grape shears, egg spoons, not finishing your plate in some cultures) but I hold out a hope (probably in vail…

> One factor that will return once people start to panic is table manners, many of which seem fussy (separate serving utensils, a butter knife, not putting used utensils onto the table) but actually evolved for hygiene reasons.

When I was a kid growing up in the late 1950s, I thought we had this problem solved.

All the local restaurants kept a jar of mustard and a jar of mayonnaise on each table. (Yes, mayo sitting out all day, but let's ignore that for now.)

They didn't have separate utensils for these jars, you just used the table knife from your place setting. This led to a problem.

What if you had already cut your burger in half and then decided you want more mayo or mustard? You certainly wouldn't use a dirty table knife that would get bits of lettuce and tomato and bread and beef into the condiments.

Fortunately, my mom taught us basic sanitation: before you dip your table knife into the mustard or mayo jar, you must first lick it clean!

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

#54

Post by BurningFrog »

pkaye wrote: post #41
sithadmin wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Extremely scared, especially in light of barriers to drug approval killing off interest in antibiotics development. Just take a look at what happened to Achaogen: http://www.bioworld.com/perspectives/2019/04/24/a-decade-of-... The FDA granted Fast Track designation for their antibiotic, only later refuse to approve it for use in bloodstream infections due to quibbling over study size (which was admittedly smaller tha…

But they could still get approval in other countries.

As I understand it, other countries are not very profitable as pharmaceutical markets, so they probably won't get developed in the first place there.

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

#55

Post by BurningFrog »

Fomite wrote: post #47
jen_h wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of her article wasn’t to push despair, but rather to urge the Western medical establishment to get moving on phage research. Bacteriophages as a solution to our antibiotic resistance crisis have been largely ignored in the West due to unpatentability, research mainly performed in Eastern Europe, etc — but her story is that a bacteriophage cocktail saved her husband’s life where antibiotics failed...and the…

Having seen her speak in person at IDWeek, I think an important thing to recognize is that the amount of work that went into treating her husband was pretty damned heroic - and it's not clear that that's not the standard for phage therapy. I literally have a standard "Why phage are a problem", from the perspective of an infectious disease epidemiologist whose been super-interested in phage for like...a decade. 1) The…

Are you saying there might be some survivor bias in this article?

Maybe 100 other equally qualified spouses tried equally ambitious programs to save someone, they all died, and we never heard about it...

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

#56

Post by Fomite »

BurningFrog wrote: post #55
Fomite wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having seen her speak in person at IDWeek, I think an important thing to recognize is that the amount of work that went into treating her husband was pretty damned heroic - and it's not clear that that's not the standard for phage therapy. I literally have a standard "Why phage are a problem", from the perspective of an infectious disease epidemiologist whose been super-interested in phage for like...a decade. 1) The…

Are you saying there might be some survivor bias in this article? Maybe 100 other equally qualified spouses tried equally ambitious programs to save someone, they all died, and we never heard about it...

Not necessarily as much as...

Right now, antibiotics are a point-and-shoot, frontline treatment for things, and phage therapy is a sort of "treatment of last resort" bespoke therapy.

Are phage super-useful for cases like the one in the article, where you have something super-resistant like Acinetobacter? Yes.

Is there much hope, near term, that they'll work as a drop-in replacement for the antibiotics we're losing? No.

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

#57

Post by Stratoscope »

Simon_says wrote: post #39
gumby wrote: post #15

One factor that will return once people start to panic is table manners, many of which seem fussy (separate saving utensils, a butter knife, not putting used utensils onto the table) but actually evolved for hygiene reasons. Sadly of course like any complex behavior it was also hijacked for sumptuary purposes (grape shears, egg spoons, not finishing your plate in some cultures) but I hold out a hope (probably in vail…

I would settle for people not coughing an sneezing into their hands and then immediately touching everything in their vicinity. I see everyone around me doing this and it disgusts me. (For the record, a better way to handle it is to sneeze into the inside of your elbow or immediately wash your hands after.)

It could be worse. Where I work, a few weeks ago I saw somebody lick his fingers and then reach into the container of forks and feel around for a while, apparently to find just the right fork.

I was guessing he had dry skin and had trouble picking up a fork unless he moistened his fingers first?

In any case I quietly went to a different container to get my own fork.

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

#58

Post by whytaka »

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 seemingly work with superbugs all the time and understand the threat, not know this thing that is amongst the very first things one is exposed to when one takes a superficial glance at the available literature?

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

#59

Post by DoreenMichele »

ImprovedSilence wrote: post #31
gumby wrote: post #15

One factor that will return once people start to panic is table manners, many of which seem fussy (separate saving utensils, a butter knife, not putting used utensils onto the table) but actually evolved for hygiene reasons. Sadly of course like any complex behavior it was also hijacked for sumptuary purposes (grape shears, egg spoons, not finishing your plate in some cultures) but I hold out a hope (probably in vail…

Having silverware actually made out of silver existed for sanitary reasons as well. Same reason to throw a silver dollar in your well.

Unfortunately, it's also a cause of metal poisoning. "Blue blood" was a term for upper class families with silverware who had silver poisoning because of it.

My recollection: we don't know how to treat silver poisoning.

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

#60

Post by elyobo »

Stratoscope wrote: post #53
gumby wrote: post #15

One factor that will return once people start to panic is table manners, many of which seem fussy (separate saving utensils, a butter knife, not putting used utensils onto the table) but actually evolved for hygiene reasons. Sadly of course like any complex behavior it was also hijacked for sumptuary purposes (grape shears, egg spoons, not finishing your plate in some cultures) but I hold out a hope (probably in vail…

> One factor that will return once people start to panic is table manners, many of which seem fussy (separate serving utensils, a butter knife, not putting used utensils onto the table) but actually evolved for hygiene reasons. When I was a kid growing up in the late 1950s, I thought we had this problem solved. All the local restaurants kept a jar of mustard and a jar of mayonnaise on each table. (Yes, mayo sitting o…

Missed opportunity to say that you "thought we had this problem licked" ;)
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