Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's time to break up the monopoly of harmful pathogens and start exploring all the options at our disposal.
Time to drag them before congress to hold them to account.
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The antimicrobial resistance crisis needs action now
71–80 of 182 posts
Re: The antimicrobial resistance crisis needs action now
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem with developing a new antibiotic is that doctors from third world countries will prescribe them like candy - so the bacteria become resistant to it fast. In fact Im very scared when I read that there are plans to use antibiotics "borrowed" from ants, or bees, because probably the antibiotic will be dumped by tons and become useless after 2-3 years, while all the ants or bees in the world die out. Apart fr…
Not only third world, I have read several articles over the years that it is (was?) prevalent in the US as well.
Yeah, many urgent care doctors here will prescribe antibiotics just to get the patient out of there as fast as they can even when they almost certainly have a viral infection
Re: The antimicrobial resistance crisis needs action now
#73We need more research in bacteriophages. They can be engineered to avoid any resistance, and they can replace antibiotics in all use cases. Besides, they are much more selective. Getting antibiotics when needed is OK, but they can lead to other health complications down the road.
The problem with phages is that our immune system can recognize them easily and flush them out of the body. It doesn't stick around long enough to do the work. It could work if the dose is massive or if the infection is localized to one specific area. Btw this is what I learnt from reading a blog from someone who has worked with this stuff. I'm not a biologist and it's been a long time since I read that article so I…
This is not necessarily true. Our gut has trillions of bacteriophages. They are actually really useful as they keep bacterial populations under control.
Many bacteriophages are not immunogenic, i.e. our immune system will ignore them. Others are very immunogenic, and are actually used as vaccine platforms.
Re: The antimicrobial resistance crisis needs action now
#74At 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?
Like many slow moving disasters, it doesn't feel like one while you live through it. An example: gonorrhea has no golden standard cure anymore. 40 years ago a single large dose of oral antibiotics was an effective cure. It made controlling it relatively easy. In the 90s, resistance to most of the common oral antibiotics became prevalent. Through the 2010s, a single dose of an intramuscular cephalosporin was effective…
Also 40 years ago, 40-some years after penicillin was introduced, gonorrhea had evolved to produce an enzyme that acted specifically against it, penicillinase.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1046026/pdf/brj...
No matter how many new, different, or even radical antibiotics we develop, unless we get ahead of over-prescribing and under-treating (not taking all of a prescribed treatment course) we will continue to rapidly evolve more successful micro-organisms, to our own detriment.
Re: The antimicrobial resistance crisis needs action now
#75I am quite sure, that if a sufficient bounty was given out for developing new kinds of antimicrobials, they'd be developed in no time. The problem is that cost and risk of development and trials is too large for the current rewards, and hence there is very little new antimicrobials being developed. There are very many promising leads though, and either making development cheaper (by requiring smaller or fewer clinica…
This is actually completely right. I believe there's some policy in the works in the US after talking to a friend who's doing some consulting work to help align the Cost-Benefit side of antimicrobial development. I can't say if there's a plethora of drugs just waiting to be released after CT requirements are lowered, but definitely there is less of an R&D incentive currently because pts who take antimicrobials only t…
There’s also pharma world wide. Seems the system is broken if only massive economic upside in the US is what leads to drug discovery and successful clinical trials.
Re: The antimicrobial resistance crisis needs action now
#76Re: The antimicrobial resistance crisis needs action now
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
Like many slow moving disasters, it doesn't feel like one while you live through it. An example: gonorrhea has no golden standard cure anymore. 40 years ago a single large dose of oral antibiotics was an effective cure. It made controlling it relatively easy. In the 90s, resistance to most of the common oral antibiotics became prevalent. Through the 2010s, a single dose of an intramuscular cephalosporin was effective…
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A few months ago there was a post about how in a social graph, the average number of friends of friends is higher than the average number of friends.
There's likely a similar trend in sexual contacts. Even if you don't "sleep around" you might sleep with someone who does.
Re: The antimicrobial resistance crisis needs action now
#78Re: The antimicrobial resistance crisis needs action now
#79I could rant on all day about this. AMR is actually a SOLVED problem at this point. If we threw money at it like we threw them at Patriot missiles, we wouldn't run out. But... here we are. Rant on why things are why they are: 1. Making antibiotics is hard and expensive. The "low-hanging fruit" are all gone, and in the last few decades we've just been rehashing different variations of the same classes of antibiotics.…
Have you applied to YC?
Re: The antimicrobial resistance crisis needs action now
#80I was hospitalized to have an operation recently and before they admitted me they tested my nose for MRSA. Apparently pretty common but not a concern as long as they are aware of it