Bacterial advances: resistance is inevitable

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pellicle

Professional Dingbat, Guru and Merkintologist
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Big pharma doesn't want to spend money developing new antibiotics,not enough money in something that people usually only take for a limited period of time. They would much rather develop a new cholesterol, diabetes or boner pill to be taken daily...
Also this is one of those instances where government needs to regulate business. It's not just China where this takes place,there are plenty of countries all over the world ,including the USA, that use antibiotics to fatten up farm animals. They are not going to voluntarily limit their own short-term profits to help prevent a potential future major health problem.
 
cldlhd;n860571 said:
Also this is one of those instances where government needs to regulate business. It's not just China where this takes place,there are plenty of countries all over the world ,including the USA, that use antibiotics to fatten up farm animals. They are not going to voluntarily limit their own short-term profits to help prevent a potential future major health problem.
One big reason I never eat factory farmed animals is that they are full of antibiotics and hormones. Consumers are conned into thinking the animals are healthy and well fed when they've simply been medicated to look that way. I'm sure antibiotic resistance has been built up far more from this use of antibiotics than over prescribing to patients. I always buy grass fed, organically reared animals to eat - I bet if more consumers chose to buy their meat from those farmers rather than the factory farmers that the world would be a better place, both for humans and animals.
 
It would be unfortunately the stuff that's pumped full of antibiotics is cheaper and most consumers choose to go that route either because it's all they can afford or all they want to. Either that or they're not aware of the situation. That's why I don't think it'll change unless the practice is outlawed and the odds of getting that accomplished around the world are pretty dim.
 
LondonAndy;n860584 said:
... and there was I thinking all this time that resistance is futile .... ;-)

[A Star Trek reference for those taking me too seriously!]
That entered my mind too LOL

It also entered my mind that I'm glad I'm in my 60's and not younger like my son in his 20's. The world of the farly near future may be quite a different place when simple infections cause death :(
 
Paleogirl;n860574 said:
One big reason I never eat factory farmed animals is that they are full of antibiotics and hormones. Consumers are conned into thinking the animals are healthy and well fed when they've simply been medicated to look that way

agreed. However with populations as they are if we want to eat more than semi-starvation diets of lentils and insects (for most people) those agricultural methods are currently all we have.

Myself I'm more Malthusian than "adaptational" ... I think we would cease to be humans if we lived in such a manner as Huxleys "Brave New World" ... we are as yet unable to grasp (well the majority) how unsustainable our present lifestyle is with our present population.

But as I always come back to, it will all "self correct" if we don't correct it.
 
LondonAndy;n860584 said:
....[A Star Trek reference for those taking me too seriously!]

exactly where I was coming from with the words ... because in this case bacterial resistance isn't futile ... for them its adapt or extinct. They've been adapting for millions of years before mammals let alone us :)
 
Makes surgery just that bit more risky. Might want to factor that into the equation for your planned redo decisions when picking a valve
Good point. This is scary stuff. My step father died a little over a year ago from an antibiotic resistant infection. One day he was working in the yard, the next he was in the hospital, apparently doing well, the next day he was gone.

We shouldn't take for granted all the things that are available to us today:
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/jan/23/antibiotic-resistant-diseases-apocalyptic-threat
She described what she called an "apocalyptic scenario" where people going for simple operations in 20 years' time die of routine infections "because we have run out of antibiotics".

Here is a good TED talk on the subject: https://www.ted.com/talks/maryn_mck...ics_don_t_work_any_more?language=en#t-1003865
 
Paleogirl;n860586 said:
That entered my mind too LOL

It also entered my mind that I'm glad I'm in my 60's and not younger like my son in his 20's. The world of the farly near future may be quite a different place when simple infections cause death :(

You mean like the world 100 years ago?
 
pellicle;n860587 said:
we are as yet unable to grasp (well the majority) how unsustainable our present lifestyle is with our present population.
Exactly. becasue of the way humans have over ruled and over populated the planet there is now the hugest problem. There isn't enough food or resources to sustain an ever increasing human population. Nature balances itself. If bacteria become resistant then that's evolution for them. As you wrote above: "They've been adapting for millions of years before mammals let alone us :)".
 
Well I don't see a lot of people volunteering to help solve the overpopulation problem personally or give up electricity , air travel etc..
 
cldlhd;n860593 said:
Well I don't see a lot of people volunteering to help solve the overpopulation problem personally or give up electricity , air travel etc..
Agreed

So nature will correct it for us ...
 
Paleogirl;n860592 said:
Exactly. becasue of the way humans have over ruled and over populated the planet there is now the hugest problem. There isn't enough food or resources to sustain an ever increasing human population. Nature balances itself. If bacteria become resistant then that's evolution for them. As you wrote above: "They've been adapting for millions of years before mammals let alone us :)".

It's like the earth's immune system is fighting back, and humans are the infection.
 
Ah kind of but I think that's just us anthropomorphising the earth. I think it's just a bunch of individual species working in their own best interest, usually not even consciously, either hostile or indifferent to others. I don't believe there is a consciousness to nature or the earth.
All I can do is educate myself and possibly try to change things for the better, part of the solution as they say, but it'll end when it ends and I doubt I'll be able to change it so....
 
cldlhd;n860608 said:
Ah kind of but I think that's just us anthropomorphising the earth. I think it's just a bunch of individual species working in their own best interest, usually not even consciously, either hostile or indifferent to others. [\QUOTE]

I would suggest even that almost gives them too much credit. They aren't working in their own best interest. The ones that happen to have genetic resistance to current antibiotics survive to procreate. The ones that don't, die. When all we have left are bacteria resistant to meds, then that is the remaining population that is procreating. Evolution at its finest. No thought. No work. Just living long enough to procreate.

If I was born 50 years earlier, I wouldn't have survived to procreate. Having been born when I was, I have lived to have five wonderful children. My messed up genes would have been removed from the pool without intervention.
 
I learned a lot from my son's computer games when he was younger: Sim Life, The Gungan Frontier, Sim Safari: you have a world, you download animals and plants, as many or as few as you like of whichever species you like, and then you see what happens. A species that does really, really well, in terms of numbers that is, inevitable is doomed as what it eats dies out - if it can adapt and change then all is well and good, if not……… …...Then another species does really well from the niche created, but eventually that dies out. To create a world which keeps going without extinctions is pretty difficult to achieve. So many species in our Earth's history have become extinct - we mammals wouldn't have risen to such numbers and diversity had the dinosaurs not become extinct. It's quite humbling. And who knows what's going to happen next !
 

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