4 ms·

Woman Killed by a Superbug Resistant to Every Available Antibiotic

78 points by richardboegli 10y ago

AngelicaAurora 10y ago
I'll take my bubble in pink please.
sebyddd 10y ago
3rd duplicate already. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13391886 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13391886 Mods can you merge please?
noisy_boy 10y ago
Patients not finishing the prescribed dose is attributed as an important factor in growing resistance of antibiotics. Though this is anecdonal, I've seen multiple instances of people not wanting to "over-eat" medicine (notwithstanding what doctor told them). The self-medication trait is quite prevalent, atleast in developing countries, where people think doctors just shove extra medicine down their throat to make money so they self-adjust the dose and stop eating the moment they feel better. Then to make things worse, they never throw the remaining "good" medicine away and self-administer that the next time things get bad. When this remaining "good" medicine doesn't work, they go to doctor again and repeat the cycle.
- marricks 10y ago
  Sad thing is 20% of antibiotic use is for people, 80% is for farmed animals[1], which sure doesn't help. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibiotic_use_in_livestock#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibiotic_use_in_livestock#Un...
  - devoply 10y ago
    This. There are very very few ways to deal with fungal infections, the most common pathway is one that is targeted by the azoles agents. Yet analogs of azoles are routinely used not to kill fungus infections but to merely control them on plants. They are used wholesale for this purpose. So guess what, there is huge resistance popping up in fungal infections that infect human beings against azole agents. Add this problem to global warming and you have a huge looming problem not just with bacteria, but fungus and molds as well. And all the new drugs in the past two decades have targeted the same pathway. So we're sort of lost on how to deal with fungus going forward.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- dingaling 10y ago
  Is the prescribed dose tailored for the specific patient, though? I don't think so, at least not in the UK on the NHS. I can understand why many people think it's just a standardised fits-the-medicine-jar prescription when the label says 'take two a day for two weeks' as if their ailment adheres to strict calendar periods.
djsumdog 10y ago
Storm Clouds Gathering did a recent post on his fight with resistant infection: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dy85bNje-Wo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dy85bNje-Wo No where near as bad as this woman obviously, as antibiotics did work on his infection.

78 points by richardboegli 10y ago

I'll take my bubble in pink please.

3rd duplicate already. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13391886 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13391886 Mods can you merge please?

noisy_boy 10y ago

Patients not finishing the prescribed dose is attributed as an important factor in growing resistance of antibiotics. Though this is anecdonal, I've seen multiple instances of people not wanting to "over-eat" medicine (notwithstanding what doctor told them). The self-medication trait is quite prevalent, atleast in developing countries, where people think doctors just shove extra medicine down their throat to make money so they self-adjust the dose and stop eating the moment they feel better. Then to make things worse, they never throw the remaining "good" medicine away and self-administer that the next time things get bad. When this remaining "good" medicine doesn't work, they go to doctor again and repeat the cycle.

marricks 10y ago
Sad thing is 20% of antibiotic use is for people, 80% is for farmed animals[1], which sure doesn't help. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibiotic_use_in_livestock#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibiotic_use_in_livestock#Un...
- devoply 10y ago
  This. There are very very few ways to deal with fungal infections, the most common pathway is one that is targeted by the azoles agents. Yet analogs of azoles are routinely used not to kill fungus infections but to merely control them on plants. They are used wholesale for this purpose. So guess what, there is huge resistance popping up in fungal infections that infect human beings against azole agents. Add this problem to global warming and you have a huge looming problem not just with bacteria, but fungus and molds as well. And all the new drugs in the past two decades have targeted the same pathway. So we're sort of lost on how to deal with fungus going forward.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
dingaling 10y ago
Is the prescribed dose tailored for the specific patient, though? I don't think so, at least not in the UK on the NHS. I can understand why many people think it's just a standardised fits-the-medicine-jar prescription when the label says 'take two a day for two weeks' as if their ailment adheres to strict calendar periods.

djsumdog 10y ago

Storm Clouds Gathering did a recent post on his fight with resistant infection: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dy85bNje-Wo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dy85bNje-Wo No where near as bad as this woman obviously, as antibiotics did work on his infection.