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Bacteria that resist 'last antibiotic' found in UK
- mschuster91 11y agoHow about the most obvious solution: Stop keeping (farm) animals in conditions that require mass antibiotic feedings for the animals to survive?!
- placeybordeaux 11y agoThis needs to be done on a global scale and we haven't even made progress on that in the US. How do we start?
- mschuster91 11y agoWell the current problematic situation of animals is relatively well contained to the Western sphere (US, EU, maybe China). The Chinese already recognize the effects on nature, the EU too (and iirc they're already beginning to introduce measures), the biggest problem is and always will be the US because of the huge influence of the farming lobby on US politics (and even if that was not the case, then the grid-lock between D/R where everyone boycotts bills from the other side, just because. Brain-dead US politics.)
- davidw 11y agoThe article actually specifically calls out agriculture in China: "The Chinese resistance cases were down to overuse of antibiotics in agriculture."
- mschuster91 11y agoYes, but at least in China there is the political will to tackle environment issues. The US is still locked and highly corrupt :/
- refurb 11y ago"Political will"? That's an interesting way to describe a dictatorship!
- gozur88 11y agoWhen you can't breathe your concern about the environment goes up markedly. The reason you don't see as much concern in the US is we've already tackled the obvious, major problems. At one time in the US there were rivers you could set alight, but that was a long time ago.
- invaliddata 11y agoA number of sources I've found indicate that (see links below for sources): 1) China consumes about 50% of the total global antibiotic production (roughly half for agriculture and half for human use). 2) Per capita human consumption of antibiotics is on the order of 10 times greater in China compared to the US. Some of these articles are several years old, and from sources I'd classify as more internal than foreign. It is likely that these figures would be conservative. If this data is approximately correct, I think we could say that 1) China has an outsized effect on the problem of antibiotic resistance (even considering it's large population). 2) The US problem of antibiotic use is mostly an agricultural one (which deserves a lot of attention), and the Chinese overuse of antibiotics is not confined to either human or agricultural use. I'm sure the chinese leadership is aware of the issue, and given their ability to make changes when something is very important (ie, air pollution during high profile events), the fact that little has been done is telling. It is likely that this simply isn't a high priority issue and thus we are unlikely to see any movement on it anytime soon. http://china.org.cn/china/2015-07/14/content_36057168.htm http://china.org.cn/china/2015-07/14/content_36057168.htm http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2015-07/14/c_134411007.htm http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2015-07/14/c_134411007.htm http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2103733,00.html http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2103733,00...
- Betelgeuse90 11y agoSouth America is extremely problematic as well in that regard.
- vanilla-almond 11y ago"the biggest problem is and always will be the US" Did you see the chart from another poster above? Many European countries like Germany, Spain, Portugal, Italy have very high levels of antibiotic usage in agriculture http://i.imgur.com/9ybmhwE.jpg http://i.imgur.com/9ybmhwE.jpg I live in Europe, and am well aware of the common belief among many Europeans that we have excellent and high animal welfare standards. But the reality is that animal welfare standards also vary greatly between countries. That chart above clearly demolishes the view that overuse of antibiotics is a problem principally for non-European countries.
- jMyles 11y agoIt sounds cruel, but I think we need to call people out when they eat factory meat.
- tptacek 11y agoSo, basically, shame low-income people?
- arethuza 11y agoHaving had my son suffer from an antibiotic resistant eye infection, if its a choice between low cost meat and useful antibiotics I'll go for the latter every time. It's not like anyone in Europe or the US is actually suffering from a lack of meat is it? [He's fine - but we were terrified he might lose the sight in one eye for a while].
- tptacek 11y agoI am not suggesting that antibiotics in meat are a good thing, but I am pointing out the reality that antibiotic-free meat is a luxury item.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- jMyles 11y ago<strike>antibiotic-free</strike> meat is a luxury item. Unless you hunt.
- tptacek 11y agoIf you're proposing a law that allows the people who buy chicken at Aldi to hunt people who want to shame them for doing it, I'm right there with you.
- TeMPOraL 11y agoIt's not a sustainable solution... wait, scratch that. Factory farming is not a sustainable solution, hunting is not even in the same ballpark as any viable solution to providing as much people as we have with regular meat meals. And then even if, you'd have a resurgence of people sick and dying from parasites and other stuff you catch from improperly handled meat.
- robotkilla 11y agoregulations through government. remove agricultural lobbyists from washington. raise awareness and turn it into a hot button topic that people in the US government have to address. fine the hell out of agricultural companies who have ruined our planet and stop putting the onus on individuals.
- Betelgeuse90 11y agoAmen. Animal agriculture (innocuously referred to as "agriculture" in the article) has to be the single biggest contributor to the existence of these superbugs.
- marshray 11y agoNot to mention all the killer diseases that made the jump from animal to man. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoonosis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoonosis "Most human diseases originated in animals"
- Houshalter 11y agoPossibly. Agriculture uses about 50% of the world's supply of antibiotics. The rest goes to humans. That's a lot, but even without it, there are enough humans on antibiotics to breed resistant strains. Many people take low doses of antibiotics every day for certain conditions like acne.
- Betelgeuse90 11y agoI think a factor of importance is how much selective pressure there is that could lead to their creation. The sporadic and fairly arbitrary use in humans doesn't create a selective pressure strong enough to create these superbugs in meaningful amounts and have them survive. When used en masse in large, concentrated populations, you're statistically much more likely to bring these superbugs into existence, and have them survive. After all, an infected human is fairly isolated. But Stick an infected chicken in a hen and you've got some trouble on your hands.
- refurb 11y agoHas to be? From what I've read the evidence isn't all that strong between use of antibiotics in livestock and resistance in humans. Remember a lot of the antibiotics used in livestocks aren't even approved for use in humans. Or they were used in humans a long time ago, but no longer are.
- gozur88 11y agoI doubt it. I recall reading an article about antibiotic resistance in Denmark. They were nearly able to wipe it out completely by changing the way antibiotics were prescribed to people.
- TelmoMenezes 11y agoWe are going in the opposite direction. Currently the US has more lax regulations than the EU. In the EU animals have to be healthy all the way throughout their lives to be sold as food. In the US, you can keep them in miserable conditions and then pump them full of antibiotics before slaughtering. Politicians are attempting to remove EU regulations against this under the guise of "removal of barriers to trade" with TTIP -- international trade agreements are the tool by which democracies are bypassed in such matters.
- maxerickson 11y agoThe US requires a withdrawal period before slaughter: http://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/portal/fsis/topics/food-safety-education/get-answers/food-safety-fact-sheets/meat-preparation/beef-from-farm-to-table/ct_index http://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/portal/fsis/topics/food-safety-... Select "Can hormones and antibiotics be used in cattle raising?". I don't think In the US, you can keep them in miserable conditions and then pump them full of antibiotics before slaughtering. reasonably captures that.
- vanilla-almond 11y ago"In the US, you can keep them in miserable conditions and then pump them full of antibiotics before slaughtering." How do you explain this then? (posted below by legulere) http://i.imgur.com/9ybmhwE.jpg http://i.imgur.com/9ybmhwE.jpg
- TelmoMenezes 11y agoI can only speculate. For example: how was this data obtained? Is the level of scrutiny equal for all countries or is there some self-reporting going on? All I know is about the differences that exist between regulations and incentives between the EU and the US. This was recently brought to public attention in the EU and there have been some large protests because of the TTIP attempt to "harmonize" practices. http://capreform.eu/food-safety-in-the-us-eu-ttip-negotiations/ http://capreform.eu/food-safety-in-the-us-eu-ttip-negotiatio... Do you think this is a lie or being misrepresented in some fashion?
- legulere 11y agoThey don't even need as much antibiotics in today's extreme farms. It's just that you earn more money if you give the animals antibiotics: You don't have to monitor them and then give them antibiotics and they will even grow faster. In Europe the rules are similar yet the antibiotics use varies drastically: http://i.imgur.com/9ybmhwE.jpg http://i.imgur.com/9ybmhwE.jpg
- giarc 11y agoIt's not only the living conditions that is promoting the use of antibiotics in agriculture. The use of antibiotics in agriculture is so high due to the idea of "growth promoters". Animals given long term antibiotics actually grow quicker, and therefore become profitable faster than animals not given background levels of antibiotics. The problem with this activity is that low levels of antibiotics selects for resistance as we have seen. In addition, drugs are given "label use" directions for particular species (ie. ovine, swine, equine) but only for major economical species. For example, the farmer might have a bottle of long acting penicillin that says give horse X mg/kg of body weight. However, this farmer might be giving these drugs to sheep and the maker of the antibiotic doesn't have label use instructions for sheep. This results in what's called "extra label drug use" and the farmer has to basically guess at what dose to give. Too high could be harmful to the animal (toxicity, clearance rate etc), too low and you promote resistance.
- api 11y agoThat would reduce the profits of companies with large numbers of lobbyists. Edit: and even if we did it in the West, China obviously doesn't care about making the inhabitants of its major cities huff heavy metals and coal dust so why would they care about this?
- fiatmoney 11y agoPeople like to blame antibiotic resistance on farms, but human populations with high rates of infection and transmission who aren't good at taking the full course of (or any) drugs are a more immediate problem. Increasing rates of drug-resistant tuberculosis and STDs aren't due to farm animals.
- robbiep 11y agoThe best evidence today actually says that you don't need to finish your course [0]. Not that you are wrong in the human consumption aspect. but finishing courses could strengthen resistance and spread of resistant organisms by creating a selective pressure in the organism (the human) to only have bacterial colonization from those that are resistant [0] https://www.mja.com.au/insight/2015/5/stop-antibiotics-experts https://www.mja.com.au/insight/2015/5/stop-antibiotics-exper...
- austinjp 11y agoWhile that's interesting I don't think it's "best evidence". Unfortunately our mechanisms for determining best evidence are woefully slow, complex, and expensive. Systematic reviews, for instance. Either this process needs to be improved (an excellent candidate for AI) or a nearly-as-good surrogate needs to be supported by policy makers.
- robbiep 11y agowhat are your thoughts on how an AI would perform this task?
- austinjp 11y agoMy thoughts on this are loosely formed :) However.... The systematic review and meta-analyses processes involve reading screeds of text and data; organising it; analysing it; weighing it against measures of quality; and conducting (often counter-intuitive) statistical procedures. This is the sort of thing that takes humans a loooooong time and is prone to error. A domain-specific AI would surely excel at tasks like this.
- em0ney 11y agoAmen. Similar to climate change in the sense that the world's worst offenders need to be on-board to resolve the problem and as a result, all other countries will cop out by blaming and scapegoating those countries
- Angostura 11y agoQuite often it has nothing to do with survival or health, it simply speeds weight-gain.
- themartorana 11y agoOfficials say the threat to human health is low, but is under ongoing review. I feel better? Is my kid going to live in a post-apocalyptic world where a new Black Plague has wiped out 2/3 of the population because it is completely antibiotic resistant? Or will new solutions (maybe ones that attack at a molecular level) be available first? I'm not asking rhetorically, any input would be awesome.
- Camillo 11y ago> Is my kid going to live in a post-apocalyptic world where a new Black Plague has wiped out 2/3 of the population because it is completely antibiotic resistant? Yes, but briefly.
- MawNicker 11y agoThere's always phage therapy. It's harder to get FDA approval though. Every application is uniquely modified to target a specific bacteria. This means each treatment would need its own approval under the current rules.
- placeybordeaux 11y agoI don't think the worry is that we will suffer a Black Plague again, but more than almost every instance of surgery or anything that leaves a person immunocompromised will lead directly to infection. A lot of modern medicine suddenly becomes useless because the health benefits that it brings are nullified by the fact that an infection is sure to follow. Organ transplants and chemotherapy are two big ones that become near impossible if antibiotics are useless.
- mod 11y agoFrom what I've read, the antibiotics can be phased out, and then later, phased back in. Because the competition is so high, the bacteria can't afford the energy/resources to continue resistance to antibiotics that aren't in use--they are out-competed. Therefore, currently ineffective antibiotics will become effective again in the future. That said, I did not read if this is being practiced already.
- 11y ago
- geertj 11y agoI'm hoping new antibiotics like Teixobactin get to market quickly. That said multiple comments have been made here on HN on how there are no incentives for the pharmaceutical industry to bring a new antibiotic to market. It would likely be prescribed as a last effort antibiotic, with a very low volume.
- gozur88 11y agoThe problem is this is kind of a catch-22 for drug companies. If they only release a new antibiotic in IV form, meaning it will only be administered at hospitals, they don't get enough volume to make money. So why research the next one? In general I'm a pretty free-market guy, but this is one area I'd like to see the government more involved, both in subsidizing new antibiotic development and in making sure we have a stock of antibiotics that still work.
- giarc 11y agoCorrect, antibiotic stewardship is basically holding back prescribing rights for last line drugs like linezolid, daptomycin etc, and rightfully so. If you're a drug company producing the newest drug, and you know that for anyone to use it they are going to need an pharmacy or ID consult to get it approved, you can view this as a barrier to adoption.
- cbeach 11y agoStudies show that immigration, sadly, is linked to the spread of antibiotic-resistant diseases. Example: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/25418572/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/25418572/ Immigrant hotspots in London now have tuberculosis rates higher than Iraq and Rwanda. 80% of cases are people born abroad, and some are antibiotic-resistant. This is a disease we thought we'd erradicated: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-34637968 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-34637968 The U.K. has seen unprecedented inflows in the last year (640K immigrants), and since then the rate has risen further - to the point where the government has refused to publish official immigration figures because it would be "unhelpful" to our negotiation with the EU, and upcoming referendum on EU membership http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/eureferendum/12057025/Government-accused-of-cover-up-as-data-suggests-million-EU-migrants-unaccounted-for-in-Britain.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/eureferendum/1205... I know how alarmist this comment sounds, and I fully expect it to be downvoted because it contradicts the politically-correct utopian vision of immigration that we're all expected to hold. But I hope lefties realise that it's their suppression of debate that frustrates people and leads them supporting reactionary leaders like Trump. We need to start discussing immigration without the stifling constraints of political correctness.
- cup 11y agoBringing up immigration in a conversation about antibiotic resistance, knowing what we know about animal farming practices is ridiculous. An analogy is like complaining about one leaking faucet in a conversation about drought when everyone is watering their garden.
- cbeach 11y agoI see you didn't read even the abstract of the study I posted, then?
- arethuza 11y agoOut of interest, what proportion of the problems with antibiotic resistance do you think are are caused by immigrants? [NB I did read the abstract, skimmed the paper with aid of Google Translate and I am, at least by the standards of HN, a raging leftie].
- Wintamute 11y agoWhat is not mentioned in the article is that the bacteria in question is treatable with a range of other antibiotics aside from Colistin ... make of that what you will.
- aftabh 11y agoFrom the article: > "antibiotic of last resort - colistin" > "The DNA that gives bacteria resistance to colistin - the mcr-1 gene - can spread rapidly between species. The concern is that colistin-resistance will now find its way into other superbugs to create infections that doctors cannot treat. "
- TTPrograms 11y agoIs there reason to think that bacteria with every gene for antibiotic resistance would be at all viable? It seems likely that these genes have other negative effects on fitness that make them unlikely to spread significantly in the absence of the antibiotic.
- dredmorbius 11y agoThe tendency, under selective pressures, is for organisms to become more fit over time. By applying constant antibiotic-induced generalised selective pressure, you're greatly increasing those odds
- TTPrograms 11y ago"More fit" only makes sense with regards to the pressure. I.e. the bacteria may survive antibiotics, but that may come at the expense of general pathogenicity. The fact that the gene is not already widespread suggests that in the absence of the selective pressure of the antibiotic it has other effects that decrease fitness in a typical environment.
- aftabh 11y ago
- perlpimp 11y ago"Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics says 837kg of colistin was sold to British farms in 2014." Why is this being sold to farmers in the first place, the antibiotic of last resistance?
- invaliddata 11y agoAgricultural use of colistin worldwide, and especially in China, dwarfs this: http://www.lancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(15)00424-7/fulltext http://www.lancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(... (see cached version for the full text, standard link has full text behind paywall) ... China is the world's largest poultry and pig producer, and in 2014 produced 17·5 million tonnes and 56·7 million tonnes, respectively.25 Most of the production is for domestic consumption with about 10% for export.26 The global market value of veterinary drugs increased from US$8·7 billion in 1992 to $20·1 billion in 2010, and in 2018 is anticipated to reach $43 billion.27, 28, 29 China is also one of the world's highest users of colistin in agriculture.29 Driven largely by China, the global demand for colistin in agriculture is expected to reach 11 942 tonnes per annum by the end of 2015 (with associated revenues of $229·5 million), rising to 16 500 tonnes by the year 2021, at an average annual growth rate of 4·75%.29 Of the top ten largest producers of colistin for veterinary use, one is Indian, one is Danish, and eight are Chinese. Asia (including China) makes up 73·1% of colistin production with 28·7% for export including to Europe.29 In 2015, the European Union and North America imported 480 tonnes and 700 tonnes, respectively, of colistin from China.29
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- anon79b8ad22b 11y ago> We need to start discussing immigration without the stifling constraints of political correctness. Leftists only support immigration because the immigrants vote overwhelmingly for left-wing parties. It's effectively a grand scheme to establish permanent majorities for left-wing parties through demographic replacement. If these immigrants were white, Christian, and conservative, walls would have already gone up to prevent their entry.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- BookmarkSaver 11y agoYes, clearly it is 100% a corrupt conspiracy. Nothing to do with ideals or compassion or even historical evidence, it is entirely calculated self-interest on behalf of every liberal party member. And it's definitely not just a natural cycle where immigrants tend to support parties that aid immigration, it's clearly a grand "scheme".
- anon79b8ad22b 11y agoConspiracy implies secrecy, but leftists have been anything but secret on their designs to establish permanent majorities for themselves through immigration. They even write boastful articles like the ones below celebrating the impeding unelectability of Republicans due to demographic changes brought about by left-wing policies, policies which of course no one can question without being ostracized as a "racist": https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/05/26/the-hard-demographic-truth-facing-republicans-in-2016-in-2-charts/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/05/26/th... http://www.salon.com/2015/10/30/gop_death_spiral_shocker_weve_gone_beyond_the_tipping_point_on_the_demographic_changes/ http://www.salon.com/2015/10/30/gop_death_spiral_shocker_wev...
- BookmarkSaver 11y agoWhat is even being argued here? First, about those articles, what "they" are you implying wrote them? And they don't seem "boastful" as much as descriptive. And even if they are liberals boasting about it, how does that make it a "scheme" so much as simply pointing out their successes and advantages? Basically where is there any shred of evidence that the prevailing reason for supporting immigration is to generate a majority, rather than simply thinking it is the right or best thing to do?