4 ms·

Isn't it possible for us to invent/discover new antibiotics?

adventured 11y ago
The value of which skyrockets as each older antibiotic becomes increasingly useless. That's being entirely ignored, seemingly in every article that talks about this problem. A recent example of a new antibiotic: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/new-antibiotic-dirt-soil-can-kill-drug-resistant-bacteria-180953828/ http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/new-antibiotic-... Or how about this: a break-through that goes beyond classic antibiotics. Something that hasn't been thought of yet. Not like humans have a history of accomplishing such feats, right? Not like the entire last century of medicine falls into that category. I can't think of a single example in modern history, in which our species has failed to think its way out of a major problem. X Y Z bad thing was supposed to take us down, or impede our progress, and we thought our way out of it. We'll continue to do that, and the overly dramatic forecasters of doom will continue to be wrong as they always are.
- jerrycabbage 11y ago
  Yes! Finally someone who understands that science is more magic than anything. If you pray and hope things will always change. I invented a magic shoe that absords CO2. Once the patent is done Global Warming will be a thing of the past!
- brianlweiner 11y ago
  One problem is bacteria develop resistance to the new drugs very quickly. Usually within 2-3 years. It's difficult to recoup your investment costs for a drug that has an effective use window that small.
  - noir_lord 11y ago
    I think if you have a disease that is curable with an antibiotic that gets really out of control you will find that government funding will become much more of a factor. Been the government that threw a few billion bucks and saved thousands of (electorate) lives is a good vote winner. The cost of developing antibiotics is large (in the billions) but US defence spending is 600bn dollars, UK defence spending is 60-odd bn dollars. Governments should already be funding this stuff (imo) since the defence of the realm is theoretically their first goal.
  - refurb 11y ago
    One problem is bacteria develop resistance to the new drugs very quickly. Usually within 2-3 years. It actually varies significantly across antibiotics. I can't find the source right now, but there was a neat diagram that showed the introduction of each antibiotic and when resistance was first identified. Some resistance was found in less than a year after the antibiotic was introduced and some were found 20 years later.
- genug 11y ago
  > Or how about this: a break-through that goes beyond classic antibiotics. Something that hasn't been thought of yet. So what should the BBC headline read, then? "We're running out of antibiotics, but surely some clever person will think of something!"?
- pmoriarty 11y ago
  "I can't think of a single example in modern history, in which our species has failed to think its way out of a major problem." War. Poverty. Hunger.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  In the last 200 years, we were mostly lucky. Humanity runs like compulsive spender who keeps finding credit cards in his house. We've almost maxed out the ones labeled "wood" and "coal" and "oil", since they were left on the table, easy to find. We stumbled upon "nuclear fission" which has a stupidly high line of credit but it's green, and the other day we met a drunkard who told us green is evil, so we shy away from it. Credit agencies are starting to call, so we're now hoping that the "renewables" card will help pay down the first three, while hoping that the "nuclear fusion" card we've ordered 50 years ago will come to us soon. The point being, we're not solving our most important problems, we've been merely leaving them out for later. If we hadn't found that "oil" card, we'd already be fucked, per what "overly dramatic forecasters of doom" were saying. Lucking out of a problem is not something you should attribute to your skills. Moreover, problems we had in the past weren't serious. And we haven't thought our way out of them - we just let them happen. War? Famine? Floods? Oh, people died. So what, there are people elsewhere, and civilization didn't fundamentally change since the ancient history anyway. Only after the industrial revolution, when the progress of technology finally gained its pace, we've entered the times in which we actually have something to lose if we fail to maintain our civilization. We've also entered the era when for the first time in history, we're creating extinction-level problems for ourselves. I love science and I do believe in human power to solve even most difficult problems. But let's not pretend that we got here by something else than just being lucky. And let's not treat serious problems as if they were child's play.
praptak 11y ago
Paradoxically, the economic incentive is weak. The research is expensive and anything you discover will be very sparsely administered (as last resort, to slow down resistance). For this reason recovering the cost might be problematic.
- giarc 11y ago
  Even if it was widely used, the other problem is that a patient takes it for 10-14 days and then stops. Drug companies like products that patients take 1 pill a day for the rest of their life.
- JeremyNT 11y ago
  The way that our society funds pharmaceutical research (by granting subsidized, temporary monopolies on any resulting products) seems completely incapable of responding to this sort of situation. A radically different incentive structure seems necessary...
- api 11y ago
  Yet another bit of reality that conflicts with market fundamentalism -- some things that are not profitable are still good and necessary.

The value of which skyrockets as each older antibiotic becomes increasingly useless. That's being entirely ignored, seemingly in every article that talks about this problem. A recent example of a new antibiotic: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/new-antibiotic-dirt-soil-can-kill-drug-resistant-bacteria-180953828/ http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/new-antibiotic-... Or how about this: a break-through that goes beyond classic antibiotics. Something that hasn't been thought of yet. Not like humans have a history of accomplishing such feats, right? Not like the entire last century of medicine falls into that category. I can't think of a single example in modern history, in which our species has failed to think its way out of a major problem. X Y Z bad thing was supposed to take us down, or impede our progress, and we thought our way out of it. We'll continue to do that, and the overly dramatic forecasters of doom will continue to be wrong as they always are.

jerrycabbage 11y ago
Yes! Finally someone who understands that science is more magic than anything. If you pray and hope things will always change. I invented a magic shoe that absords CO2. Once the patent is done Global Warming will be a thing of the past!
brianlweiner 11y ago
One problem is bacteria develop resistance to the new drugs very quickly. Usually within 2-3 years. It's difficult to recoup your investment costs for a drug that has an effective use window that small.
- noir_lord 11y ago
  I think if you have a disease that is curable with an antibiotic that gets really out of control you will find that government funding will become much more of a factor. Been the government that threw a few billion bucks and saved thousands of (electorate) lives is a good vote winner. The cost of developing antibiotics is large (in the billions) but US defence spending is 600bn dollars, UK defence spending is 60-odd bn dollars. Governments should already be funding this stuff (imo) since the defence of the realm is theoretically their first goal.
- refurb 11y ago
  One problem is bacteria develop resistance to the new drugs very quickly. Usually within 2-3 years. It actually varies significantly across antibiotics. I can't find the source right now, but there was a neat diagram that showed the introduction of each antibiotic and when resistance was first identified. Some resistance was found in less than a year after the antibiotic was introduced and some were found 20 years later.
genug 11y ago
> Or how about this: a break-through that goes beyond classic antibiotics. Something that hasn't been thought of yet. So what should the BBC headline read, then? "We're running out of antibiotics, but surely some clever person will think of something!"?
pmoriarty 11y ago
"I can't think of a single example in modern history, in which our species has failed to think its way out of a major problem." War. Poverty. Hunger.
TeMPOraL 11y ago
In the last 200 years, we were mostly lucky. Humanity runs like compulsive spender who keeps finding credit cards in his house. We've almost maxed out the ones labeled "wood" and "coal" and "oil", since they were left on the table, easy to find. We stumbled upon "nuclear fission" which has a stupidly high line of credit but it's green, and the other day we met a drunkard who told us green is evil, so we shy away from it. Credit agencies are starting to call, so we're now hoping that the "renewables" card will help pay down the first three, while hoping that the "nuclear fusion" card we've ordered 50 years ago will come to us soon. The point being, we're not solving our most important problems, we've been merely leaving them out for later. If we hadn't found that "oil" card, we'd already be fucked, per what "overly dramatic forecasters of doom" were saying. Lucking out of a problem is not something you should attribute to your skills. Moreover, problems we had in the past weren't serious. And we haven't thought our way out of them - we just let them happen. War? Famine? Floods? Oh, people died. So what, there are people elsewhere, and civilization didn't fundamentally change since the ancient history anyway. Only after the industrial revolution, when the progress of technology finally gained its pace, we've entered the times in which we actually have something to lose if we fail to maintain our civilization. We've also entered the era when for the first time in history, we're creating extinction-level problems for ourselves. I love science and I do believe in human power to solve even most difficult problems. But let's not pretend that we got here by something else than just being lucky. And let's not treat serious problems as if they were child's play.

praptak 11y ago

Paradoxically, the economic incentive is weak. The research is expensive and anything you discover will be very sparsely administered (as last resort, to slow down resistance). For this reason recovering the cost might be problematic.

giarc 11y ago
Even if it was widely used, the other problem is that a patient takes it for 10-14 days and then stops. Drug companies like products that patients take 1 pill a day for the rest of their life.
JeremyNT 11y ago
The way that our society funds pharmaceutical research (by granting subsidized, temporary monopolies on any resulting products) seems completely incapable of responding to this sort of situation. A radically different incentive structure seems necessary...
api 11y ago
Yet another bit of reality that conflicts with market fundamentalism -- some things that are not profitable are still good and necessary.