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The antimicrobial resistance crisis needs action now

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Re: The antimicrobial resistance crisis needs action now

#91

Post by manmal »

yarg wrote: post #64

Phage therapy seems like it's gonna become increasingly important (we've been using static munitions against increasingly dynamic enemies for far too long). Keyhole and robotic surgeries (already advancing rapidly) are going to be significant and useful. We also need to investigate, understand and classify symbiotic organisms with the same zeal with which we've approached pathogens. We've spent so long glaring at the…

Phages are great when they work, but they too are yet another tool that bacteria can evolve to survive. I can’t find the article right now but there are bacterial strains that evolve so quickly that you can’t usually subdue them with just one strain of phage - you need to go at them with multiple strains at once.

Re: The antimicrobial resistance crisis needs action now

#92

Post by manmal »

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?

But it does. Both my grandfathers died as a result of infections with resistant strains, one of them after surgery, and the other after an extended hospital stay. Cause of death for both of them was persistent diarrhea over a few weeks. It’s quite common for tissue to become infected after major surgery (eg hip) with resistant bacteria, often necessitating another round of surgery and/or Dr-House-esque search for a particular antibiotic that will work. Older patients might not survive for long enough.

Re: The antimicrobial resistance crisis needs action now

#93

Post by _heimdall »

bigDinosaur wrote: post #58
_heimdall wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this ends up being the approach, I really hope it will be led by a country with a few decades experience in successfully being socialist. The US really has no business doing this, the government departments and oversight boards that exist today are much too compromised by the pharmaceutical industry to pull this off.

A national laboratory is not a socialist idea. If it were then the US would actually be an extremely socialist country given its government spending. Doesn't the US put out the most research in the world, and have the most Nobel prizes? That hardly seems like a country that can't manage this. Nowhere is free of bureaucracy.

Nationalization of research laboratories is a very socialist idea. That doesn't make it bad or inefficient, but government takeover of research and education has pretty solid roots in socialism, Marxism, and fascism.

The US does spend the most and that leads to output, but that doesn't mean it's the most efficient or does the best job of prioritizing the populations best interests over political or business concerns.

The selection process of awards like the Nobel Prize is also at risk of bias given that many of the people involved in picking the winners are themselves part of the national laboratory machine.

Regardless, my point was simply that we probably have a better chance at a Swedish effort leading to less biased and more efficient research than one from the US right now. I wasn't aiming for a debate on the relative political roots or leanings of publicly funded research labs.

Re: The antimicrobial resistance crisis needs action now

#94

Post by SergeAx »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #70
zosima wrote: post #15

I 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…

> risk of development and trials is too large Anecdotally, from two (albeit leading) microbiologists, an additional risk if the cultural one. The thinking being, if you work on a semi-marginal anti microbial, it’s less important, but nobody will protest your margins. Versus if you develop something game changing, chances are the powers that be will take it from you.

As we just saw with the COVID-19 vaccines, you may develop game changing drug, almost skip the testing phase and profit hugely off it, if the demand is high enough.

Re: The antimicrobial resistance crisis needs action now

#95

Post by MobileVet »

SergeAx wrote: post #94
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> risk of development and trials is too large Anecdotally, from two (albeit leading) microbiologists, an additional risk if the cultural one. The thinking being, if you work on a semi-marginal anti microbial, it’s less important, but nobody will protest your margins. Versus if you develop something game changing, chances are the powers that be will take it from you.

As we just saw with the COVID-19 vaccines, you may develop game changing drug, almost skip the testing phase and profit hugely off it, if the demand is high enough.

The mRNA vaccines were tested on 10ks of people before they were released to the general public. While the timelines were sped up and access to larger bodies of test subjects, the testing phase was not skipped by any stretch

Re: The antimicrobial resistance crisis needs action now

#97

Post by rdedev »

nextos wrote: post #73
rdedev wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Bacteriophages in the bloodstream is different from our gut. Our gut has a lot of bacteria too but the immune system rarely bothers with them till they start popping up outside the guy. We've coevolved with phages for a long time. So our immune system knows that they are mostly benign but don't like them hanging around the bloodstream and flush them out pretty quick

Re: The antimicrobial resistance crisis needs action now

#98

Post by epicureanideal »

hourago wrote: post #81
zosima wrote: post #15

I 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…

> The problem is that cost and risk of development and trials is too large for the current rewards, This kind of invesment has been traditionally done by governments. But with a reduction of taxation governments do not have animore money to do this. And for private companies it makes more sense to spend that kind of money in advertisment than in developing new products. > ensuring good prices or bounties for successf…

> But with a reduction of taxation

I’m pretty sure government tax revenue is still at or near all time highs. As the population grows there’s more and more taxes to spend for this purpose. It’s just a matter of priorities.

Re: The antimicrobial resistance crisis needs action now

#99

Post by knightofmars »

_heimdall wrote: post #93
bigDinosaur wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A national laboratory is not a socialist idea. If it were then the US would actually be an extremely socialist country given its government spending. Doesn't the US put out the most research in the world, and have the most Nobel prizes? That hardly seems like a country that can't manage this. Nowhere is free of bureaucracy.

Nationalization of research laboratories is a very socialist idea. That doesn't make it bad or inefficient, but government takeover of research and education has pretty solid roots in socialism, Marxism, and fascism. The US does spend the most and that leads to output, but that doesn't mean it's the most efficient or does the best job of prioritizing the populations best interests over political or business concerns.…

I agree with you here. A parallel example being the IRS and tax reform that's prevented by private companies in the tax preparation domain.

Re: The antimicrobial resistance crisis needs action now

#100

Post by wnevets »

epicureanideal wrote: post #98
hourago wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem is that cost and risk of development and trials is too large for the current rewards, This kind of invesment has been traditionally done by governments. But with a reduction of taxation governments do not have animore money to do this. And for private companies it makes more sense to spend that kind of money in advertisment than in developing new products. > ensuring good prices or bounties for successf…

> But with a reduction of taxation I’m pretty sure government tax revenue is still at or near all time highs. As the population grows there’s more and more taxes to spend for this purpose. It’s just a matter of priorities.

> As the population grows there’s more and more taxes to spend for this purpose.

but so does the cost to service that growing population.

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