New Antibiotic Proves Effective Against "Superbugs"

[Callate]

Good news.

Can we keep these ones from getting into livestock? And stop doctors from prescribing them to get whiny patients who don't understand their conditions can't be treated by antibiotics to go away? It would be nice if we could stop breeding antibiotic-resistant strains so much faster than we develop antibiotics.

 

[Frezzato]

snip

Your post reminds me of the time I worked in a warehouse in California. A girl in the main office had a cold and her mom gave her drugs purchased in Mexico legally and over-the-counter. The drug in question: Tetracycline. I saw the bottle myself. Yep, her mom was giving her antibiotics--for a virus. And no, her mom was not a doctor (shocking!).

It's not like the US is any less culpable of course. We're putting antibiotics in Band Aids and giving goldfish Triple Sulfa [http://www.petsmart.com/product/index.jsp?productId=10850836].

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

The real reason MRSA is dangerous is not because it is a flesh-eating bacteria of epic proportions (it ain't), but rather because it is a body-foreign bacteria that doesn't get killed off by antibiotics. Normally these body-foreign bacteria ain't a problem, but if you use antibiotics to kill most other forms of bacteria you end up with a great opportunity for MRSA to suddenly spread like crazy. It begins multiplying like nobodies business and before you know it is causing infections (especially in open wounds). For a healthy person between 15 and 65 this ain't no thing, not much worse than any other infection you are likely to be subjected too. But for an old person who has already suffered an infection and is weakened from it? It is likely to kill them. And since old people are the main recipients of in-patient care MRSA can turn a serious bu non-lethal cause of admission (such as pneumonia) into a string of nosocomial infections that eventually kills the patient.

That's why MRSA, VRE and similar multi-resistant bacteria are a problem: not because they are unusually dangerous or lethal, but because they compound health problems in a population that is already weakened and potentially unable to deal with follow-up infections.

 

[ryo02]

Well, until its found in twenty years or so that it iself causes cancer or kills the body or something like how everyhting seems ot turn evil in twenty years.

Nah, this drug is going to be fine.

The problem is going to be that as soon as we start using it regularly, the bacteria will adapt to it (because that's what they always do), and it will become less and less effective until it stops working altogether.

I was just going to say before I read your post that we should stop doctors from giving them out like they're sweets.

 

[SadisticFire]

Good news.

Can we keep these ones from getting into livestock? And stop doctors from prescribing them to get whiny patients who don't understand their conditions can't be treated by antibiotics to go away? It would be nice if we could stop breeding antibiotic-resistant strains so much faster than we develop antibiotics.

This, this, this and more fucking this.
That's one thing (of many) that irks me about humanity. We keep trying to cling to science as if it's a miracle worker and our actions will never EVER have possible consequences, or "not in our back yard mentality." The cynical side of me believes we may actually just flat out end up killing ourselves because some one couldn't suffer through a cold for a couple days, and then proceed to stop taking their AB's early, allowing resistant bacteria to infect us all.

 

[Jupiter065]

Hopefully we can find a few more things on the scant years before ocean acidification turns the seas into giant empty bubbling pools of death.

We are so screwed.

 

[Scrythe]

And when we abuse the shit out of this new antibiotic by putting in everything it doesn't need to be in, new uberbugs will start showing up, and that call-and-response game can continue! Progress!

Seriously though, we really need to chill the fuck out with the antibiotic soaps and sanitation gels.