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New antibiotic kills off persistent infections

phenomena.nationalgeographic.com

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Re: New antibiotic kills off persistent infections

#61

Post by evacuationdrill »

brandoncarl wrote: post #45
Fomite wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doubtful, as there's little to no scientific evidence that Chronic Lyme Disease is actually a bacterial infection.

That's actually a bit of a dated response: See recent study on Rhesus monkeys: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjourna... The "no bacteria" perspective is usually based off of IDSA guidelines. Unfortunately, they've been successfully litigated against for providing incorrect information that appear to be linked to financial interests: "My office uncovered undisclosed financial interests held by s…

"Pursuant to their agreement with Blumenthal the IDSA guidelines were reviewed by an independent panel subject to strict conflict-of-interest guidelines and vetted by a medical ethicist. The panel supported the original IDSA guidelines, finding that "chronic Lyme disease" and "post Lyme syndrome" lack clear definitions and convincing biological evidence. Further, the report emphasized that several prospective clinical trials of prolonged antibiotic therapy for persistently symptomatic patients uniformly showed evidence of harm without convincing evidence of benefit.[22] Nonetheless, some groups have continued to criticize the IDSA guidelines after the 2012 review.[23] [24]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infectious_Diseases_Society_of...

Also, see your sibling post by me with info from the CDC. It doesn't seem like they're dismissing the symptoms, they're just saying that antibiotics don't help.

Re: New antibiotic kills off persistent infections

#62

Post by joe_the_user »

rsync wrote: post #53
AaronFriel wrote: post #11

The most understated portion of the article is that there is a method discovered that can kill biofilms. The discovery of new antibiotics and delivery techniques leaves me less optimistic for long-term change in the availability of life-saving antibiotics. I suspect bacteria can, and will, evolve around almost any mitigating technique we develop. Yet I'm optimistic, because tools that crack biofilms are a new are of…

"You can't treat a hospital room with an autoclave" Hmmm... that sounds like an awfully good idea, actually... Build the hospital room with the ability to be airtight, make sure all materials can withstand 134 C (or remove things that can't for their own cleaning) ... and autoclave the room ...

There are simpler things.

Like not having mega-hospitals that are impossible to keep entirely clean.

Growing up near the UCLA Medical Center, a vast, vast complex, I heard tales that there were diseases that existed there and nowhere else in the world. Most patients derive little benefit from the scale of the hospital and the fact that in a huge hospital getting all rooms clean at once is logistically very difficult means that scale can be very dangerous.

Re: New antibiotic kills off persistent infections

#63

Post by joe_the_user »

_Adam wrote: post #29
AaronFriel wrote: post #11

The most understated portion of the article is that there is a method discovered that can kill biofilms. The discovery of new antibiotics and delivery techniques leaves me less optimistic for long-term change in the availability of life-saving antibiotics. I suspect bacteria can, and will, evolve around almost any mitigating technique we develop. Yet I'm optimistic, because tools that crack biofilms are a new are of…

>I suspect bacteria can, and will, evolve around almost any mitigating technique we develop. That's a baseless suspicion. Bacteria are ultimately bound by physical laws, and while they've proven resilient, there's no reason to suggest we will be unable to develop the means to annihilate them at will. Humans are creative - bacteria just evolve fast. I agree about the importance of the biofilm claim, but what they don'…

I agree that we humans don't have to expect bacteria to always evolve methods to resist our medical interventions. However, I think the most effective thing, maybe the only, we can do is actually look at the process of bacterial evolution.

That is, unless antibiotics are wildly over-used and human pathogens are concentrated in one place facing constant medical intervention, human medical intervention is going to be a very small, unimportant part of bacterial evolution.

Unfortunately, antibiotics are widely over used and pathogens are concentrated in poor administered hospitals.

If we stop these practices and we could stop these practices, then antibiotic-resistant bacteria would have little evolutionary incentive to exist.

Re: New antibiotic kills off persistent infections

#64

Post by DanBC »

joe_the_user wrote: post #63
_Adam wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I suspect bacteria can, and will, evolve around almost any mitigating technique we develop. That's a baseless suspicion. Bacteria are ultimately bound by physical laws, and while they've proven resilient, there's no reason to suggest we will be unable to develop the means to annihilate them at will. Humans are creative - bacteria just evolve fast. I agree about the importance of the biofilm claim, but what they don'…

I agree that we humans don't have to expect bacteria to always evolve methods to resist our medical interventions. However, I think the most effective thing, maybe the only, we can do is actually look at the process of bacterial evolution. That is, unless antibiotics are wildly over-used and human pathogens are concentrated in one place facing constant medical intervention, human medical intervention is going to be a…

> Unfortunately, antibiotics are widely over used and pathogens are concentrated in poor administered hospitals.

Some countries have people who sell incomplete courses of anti biotics, without a prescription.[1] Someone can buy a few days worth of pills - enough to get them over the illness, but also enough to promote anti biotic resistance.

For example, people in India die from pnumonia (largest killer of children in India) and these people need to use antibiotics. They often can't afford a complete course. And then other people misuse antibiotics for simple diarrhoea, which isn't helped with antibiotics.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3193708/

> The bacterial disease burden in India is among the highest in the world1; consequently, antibiotics will play a critical role in limiting morbidity and mortality in the country. As a marker of disease burden, pneumonia causes an estimated 410,000 deaths in India each year2, and it is the number-one killer of children3. Many of these deaths occur because patients do not have access to life-saving antibiotics when and where these are needed. At the other extreme, antibiotics are used in situations where these cannot be expected to improve the patient's condition, particularly as treatment for the common cold and uncomplicated cases of diarrhoea (which are appropriately treated with oral rehydration therapy).

[1] http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/health/policy-and-issues/an...

> The rise is substantial in the retail sector where antibiotics are mostly sold without a prescription,

Re: New antibiotic kills off persistent infections

#65

Post by _Adam »

AaronFriel wrote: post #42
_Adam wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I suspect bacteria can, and will, evolve around almost any mitigating technique we develop. That's a baseless suspicion. Bacteria are ultimately bound by physical laws, and while they've proven resilient, there's no reason to suggest we will be unable to develop the means to annihilate them at will. Humans are creative - bacteria just evolve fast. I agree about the importance of the biofilm claim, but what they don'…

The problem of killing bacteria, as I see it, will increasingly become something akin to the demarcation problem of philosophy. Why would it not be? It is natural that the optimal situation for pathogenic bacteria to be in is one in which they are indistinguishable from necessary cells. It may take an extraordinarily long time, but until we are able to completely eradicate a pathogenic bacteria from the earth , we wi…

But as I said, they are ultimately bound by the laws of nature. Evolution can only happen so quickly; they can only evolve their genome so much in a given period of time.

What you're suggesting is they'll evolve to look like human cells. But that doesn't make sense. They would need to evolve that way in a single generation. Something that's "almost like" a human cell would just be wiped out.

Just consider how long it took for the last common ancestor (of humans and bacteria) to evolve into a single celled organism.

Re: New antibiotic kills off persistent infections

#66

Post by _Adam »

crusso wrote: post #59
_Adam wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I suspect bacteria can, and will, evolve around almost any mitigating technique we develop. That's a baseless suspicion. Bacteria are ultimately bound by physical laws, and while they've proven resilient, there's no reason to suggest we will be unable to develop the means to annihilate them at will. Humans are creative - bacteria just evolve fast. I agree about the importance of the biofilm claim, but what they don'…

Humans are creative - bacteria just evolve fast Yeah, but once we get good enough to annihilate them at will we will also have a similar power to improve them through tinkering. Just like computer viruses continue to be developed by people, biological agents will be developed as well. Some human tinkering will be for the heck of it. Some will be government level projects that get out of control. Eventually, organized…

It's certainly possible that one day we'll have desktop genome-printers. Any technology can (and often is) abused, and that would be no exception. Hopefully, there will be a Kaspserky for this era. A "Gene Kaspersky", if you will.

Re: New antibiotic kills off persistent infections

#67

Post by emiliobumachar »

spindritf wrote: post #3

> it only works the bacteria known as gram-positives, which includes problematic bugs like Staphylococcus I have had one of those for almost a decade now. > He hasn’t tested it in humans yet How long is the road ahead before it becomes available to regular patients? Should I get my hopes up?

Consider writing to the researchers volunteering for a clinical trial.

It does, of course, involve a certain risk. You should do a lot of thinking before taking such a leap.

Re: New antibiotic kills off persistent infections

#69

Post by GoodIntentions »

analog31 wrote: post #68

If this is a novel antibiotic with any therapeutic potential, please let's outlaw feeding it to cattle by the ton.

Pretty much exactly what I was going to post. Prophylactic use of antibiotics in hogs/whatever is stupidity in a class of its' own, selectively breeding organisms on an industrial scale for resistance to the drugs we might want to use to keep us alive.

Re: New antibiotic kills off persistent infections

#70

Post by jlgreco »

rsync wrote: post #53
AaronFriel wrote: post #11

The most understated portion of the article is that there is a method discovered that can kill biofilms. The discovery of new antibiotics and delivery techniques leaves me less optimistic for long-term change in the availability of life-saving antibiotics. I suspect bacteria can, and will, evolve around almost any mitigating technique we develop. Yet I'm optimistic, because tools that crack biofilms are a new are of…

"You can't treat a hospital room with an autoclave" Hmmm... that sounds like an awfully good idea, actually... Build the hospital room with the ability to be airtight, make sure all materials can withstand 134 C (or remove things that can't for their own cleaning) ... and autoclave the room ...

Hospital rooms with built-in autoclaves would give horror movies a lot more material to work with...
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