Antibiotic resistance 'a time-bomb'

(<a href="http://v6.tinypic.com/player.swf?file=24goih4&#38;s=6" rel="nofollow">http://v6.tinypic.com/player.swf?file=24goih4&#38;s=6</a>)<p>Here's a short snippet from a BBC Television programme (Horizon - 'defeating the superbugs').<p>It shows E.Coli developing anti-biotic resistance. There's a tray of nutrient jelly. The jelly is divided into sections. It starts with no antibiotic. Then there's a normal dose. Then there's a 10x dose, followed by 100x dose, followed by 1000x dose. They reach the limits of solubility. They cannot dissolve any more antibiotic into the jelly.<p>Then they drop E.Coli onto the normal jelly, and use a time lapse camera to show the growth.<p>After just two weeks the bacteria is able to live on the 1000x dosed jelly.<p>It's pretty impressive demonstration.<p>(Apologies for the suboptimal hosting site. YouTube's contentID blocks this video worldwide.)

A year ago my mother went in for back surgery, a week after she had a sharp pain, and ended up with MRSA which had turned into sepsis. It damaged her heart and in the end, after a two month fight led the ARDS and took her life. The hell this put her through was extremely real.<p>Between the lack of solid contact precautions, doctors who think they are above them, the over-use of antibiotics which lead to this etc. this is a huge problem. The number of instances of MRSA are growing every year which is the scariest part of this. I can vividly remember my mother reading and recommending a book about the coming superbugs back in the 90's when MRSA was rare. It was quite ironic that this ended up killing her.

I had a "minor" bought with MRSA a few years back that put me in the hospital for 2 days. Several weeks after getting a tiny little scratch near my elbow my entire forearm swelled up a couple inches. I went through several oral antibiotic treatments before they had to stick me in the hospital to give me the crazy IV stuff. The one that ended up solving the infection was vancomycin, which has been historically the "drug of last resort." During that little incident, I developed an allergy to two different antibiotics, so on top of bacterial resistance, now I have to be concerned with my own body's inability to deal with particular antibiotics.<p>Also, let me tell you, IV Benadryl is some good shit...

I've worked in a US hospital for a few years, and I've never seen a bacteria that was resistant to all antibiotics, but I have seen people die from bacterial infections. So I think the media focus on drug-resistant bacteria is oversimplified. Why would someone die from a bacterial infection while receiving appropriate antibiotics? One reason is that the antibiotics can't reach the bacteria -- for example if the bacteria are organized into an abscess or biofilm. Another reason is that the body can overreact to the infection, and the patient can die from their immune response rather than the infection itself -- this is called sepsis. Other problems with antibiotics: culture results (which tell you which antibiotic to use) can take a few days, antibiotics frequently have side effects, and it's frequently unclear when the infection is fully treated and the antibiotics can be stopped. I felt a need to respond because a politician reading articles in the popular media will get a distorted view of what is actually needed in hospitals, potentially leading to inappropriate research funding priorities.

A bit of a tangent, but... from the posted link: <i>Routine operations such as hip replacements could become deadly in just 20 years time if we lose the ability to fight infection</i><p>I would never encourage anyone to think of a hip replacement as "routine." It is majorly invasive surgery, and any number of things can go wrong. Post op infections are not uncommon. And just being under deep anasthesia for that long is not without suspected long-term side effects.

Yeah, well, good luck convincing, say, chinese farmers not to give tons of antibiotics to their livestock. Nobody is interested reducing pharmaceuticals' revenue either. On a side note, take into account we didn't have antibiotics centuries ago, and people just lived. Endure whatever comes, just live. And don't look so shocked, we have democracy and we're surrounded by morons, the shocking thing is that there's still any prosperity at all.

The ROI on antibiotics is much lower than that of a "lifetime drug" such as an anti-depressant that a patient will take for years and years. Pharmaceuticals are mostly privatized and that's not changing, so the government is going to have to find some ways to incentivize innovation in the antibiotics market. Counting on government isn't a popular option these days, but this is the perfect role for them actually.

Antibiotic resistance, giant mosquitos [1], mutant rats [2]. Pests are evolving to continue living despite our pesticides. We aren't going to make the Earth too hot to live on, or block out the sun with pollution. We're going to be forced off of the planet by evolved pests and predators.<p>Like species which were forced out of the water, onto dry land, because they were out-competed -- one of our evolutionary advantages is that we can survive in space.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.gainesville.com/article/20130305/ARTICLES/130309802/-1/news?Title=State-prone-for-mosquito-season-ripe-with-painful-behemoth&#38;tc=ar" rel="nofollow">http://www.gainesville.com/article/20130305/ARTICLES/1303098...</a><p>[2] <a href="http://www.thenational.ae/news/world/middle-east/iran-deploys-sniper-teams-in-tehran-to-battle-mutant-rats" rel="nofollow">http://www.thenational.ae/news/world/middle-east/iran-deploy...</a>

To help, spread this message: <i>you often don't want an antibiotic</i>.<p>If you have a viral infection, taking an antibiotic is like setting mousetraps to kill mosquitos.<p>Meanwhile, your unnecessary antibiotic 1) has side effects, 2) costs money, 3) helps breed superbugs.<p>Many patients feel that "if I waited 2 hours to see the doctor, he/she had better give me <i>something</i>." Many doctors cave to these demands. We need to stop both.

The comments here are a little over the top "antibiotic resistance is worse than terrorism!" Drug resistance is a problem, but check a reasonable source: <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/drugresistance/about.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.cdc.gov/drugresistance/about.html</a> and don't gravitate toward panic and fear. Fear is the path to the dark side.

What about how most of the soap you can buy in stores these days is antibacterial soap? I would think the huge use of antibacterial soap might play a part as well. Antibacterial soap probably is not necessary for most people yet it has become the default soap for most, and you have to go out of your way to buy non antibacterial soap.

I think this Wikipedia page does the best job of succinctly summarizing the severity of the issue:<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_antibiotics" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_antibiotics</a>

Antibiotic resistance is <i>scarier</i> than terrorism. A once-in-a-century terrorist attack killed 3000 people. TB still carries off more than a million people per year, and used to be incurable.<p>Drug-resistant bacteria sounds like a paranoid tinfoil fear, but hospitals already deal with the problem. Doctors do not want to hear the words "drug-resistant MRSA", ever.<p>Probably the worst culprit is the abuse of antibiotics in factory farming. The animals live in disgusting conditions that require antibiotics to keep them viable. (As a side effect, the drugs also make them fatter, producing more meat per head.) This is a huge contributor to the problem.