3 ms·

I'm not going to be able to explain my point clearly, but I will try. you keep seeing rhetoric like this, 'we have antibiotic resistance because doctors were p

I'm not going to be able to explain my point clearly, but I will try. you keep seeing rhetoric like this, 'we have antibiotic resistance because doctors were prescribing it willy nilly' all the time, but it just doesn't line up. take a look at the list of diseases that formed / are forming resistance. they are all diseases you absolutely should have been taking antibiotics for. they werent diseases that gained super powers because someone was taking penicillin for the flu. then you have things like MRSA, which was discovered almost immediately after antibiotics, however, it was probably discovered because people were experimenting with antibiotics and that made it show its face. In other words, it was always around. its documented that people died of such infections before, we just dont look too much past it because they didnt have antibiotics at the time.

devmunchies 9y ago
85% of all antibiotics sold are for livestock. The volume of antibiotic given to animals, and the cramped and dirty living conditions of many farms results in a damn good engine for creating antibiotic resistant bacteria
- autokad 9y ago
  not just livestock, one of our most powerful antibiotics (tetracycline), was used en-mase to wash down produce such as grapes. still, things like antibiotic resistant gonorrhea, syphilis, and tuberculosis scare me the most, and they have nothing to do with livestock. we are in a bit of a catch 22, we want to treat these diseases, but in doing so the diseases are getting stronger in an arms race against our technology. meanwhile our bodies de-evolve due to its dependence on our technology to defend it.
  - devmunchies 9y ago
    > meanwhile our bodies de-evolve due to its dependence on our technology to defend it I saw in a documentary a couple years ago that skulls of our ancient hunter-gatherer ancestors had little to no dental cavities—their teeth were intact. It was attributed to their very diverse bacteria exposure (being hunter gatherers) and no sterilization. This changed with farming. I'm a bigger fan of probiotic research rather than this antibacterial "arms race".
    - maxerickson 9y ago
      There's likely a gene variant where people that have it have much higher resistance to cavities (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3318028/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3318028/ ). It'd probably be more prevalent if we didn't cook food and needed our teeth more.
    - shagie 9y ago
      This has more to do with sugar (corn in the americas). For example, in Wisconsin it is possible to use dental information to identify if there was a diet of wild rice or corn. https://www.wpr.org/shows/wisconsins-mound-builders https://www.wpr.org/shows/wisconsins-mound-builders Farming is in part responsible for the concentration of sugars that bacteria use.
Retric 9y ago
Antibiotic resistance jumps across disease types. You often don't notice resistance for less serious diseases because people get better even if the pills did nothing. PS: Horizontal DNA transfer is wacky in single cell organisms. http://amrls.cvm.msu.edu/microbiology/molecular-basis-for-antimicrobial-resistance/acquired-resistance/acquisition-of-antimicrobial-resistance-via-horizontal-gene-transfer http://amrls.cvm.msu.edu/microbiology/molecular-basis-for-an...
nerdponx 9y ago
It's not rhetoric. It's research. https://www.cdc.gov/drugresistance/about.html https://www.cdc.gov/drugresistance/about.html
tclancy 9y ago
I think you're assuming everywhere in the world is like where you are. I remember reading "The Coming Plague" as a kid and being freaked out when the author predicted this given how antibiotics are consumed in poorer economies: some are available on the black market, so you take what's available, not necessarily what kills the thing you have which is how germs build up and then pass on resistance (assuming my 25 year-old memory of the book is accurate).
- Fomite 9y ago
  Antibiotics are terrifyingly unregulated in the developing world, and resistance is essentially ubiquitous.
Fomite 9y ago
You only notice that because they're the ones that get you sick. The concern is that we generate resistance in your ordinary gut flora, and then via horizontal gene transfer that resistance gets into a pathogen that's actively dangerous.
elihu 9y ago
Something I realized by travelling to Indonesia is that people in developing countries take antibiotics a lot (you can buy Cipro as easily as buying Tylenol in the U.S.) and that they really do need them because they get bacterial infections from bad food or water a lot. It seems like the best thing to do to prevent human over-use of antibiotics would be to convince developing countries to impose stricter food handling regulations and assist them in upgrading their water and sewer infrastructure so that the water that comes from a faucet is safe to drink. If people don't get sick in the first place, they don't need antibiotics.

devmunchies 9y ago

85% of all antibiotics sold are for livestock. The volume of antibiotic given to animals, and the cramped and dirty living conditions of many farms results in a damn good engine for creating antibiotic resistant bacteria

autokad 9y ago
not just livestock, one of our most powerful antibiotics (tetracycline), was used en-mase to wash down produce such as grapes. still, things like antibiotic resistant gonorrhea, syphilis, and tuberculosis scare me the most, and they have nothing to do with livestock. we are in a bit of a catch 22, we want to treat these diseases, but in doing so the diseases are getting stronger in an arms race against our technology. meanwhile our bodies de-evolve due to its dependence on our technology to defend it.
- devmunchies 9y ago
  > meanwhile our bodies de-evolve due to its dependence on our technology to defend it I saw in a documentary a couple years ago that skulls of our ancient hunter-gatherer ancestors had little to no dental cavities—their teeth were intact. It was attributed to their very diverse bacteria exposure (being hunter gatherers) and no sterilization. This changed with farming. I'm a bigger fan of probiotic research rather than this antibacterial "arms race".
  - maxerickson 9y ago
    There's likely a gene variant where people that have it have much higher resistance to cavities (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3318028/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3318028/ ). It'd probably be more prevalent if we didn't cook food and needed our teeth more.
  - shagie 9y ago
    This has more to do with sugar (corn in the americas). For example, in Wisconsin it is possible to use dental information to identify if there was a diet of wild rice or corn. https://www.wpr.org/shows/wisconsins-mound-builders https://www.wpr.org/shows/wisconsins-mound-builders Farming is in part responsible for the concentration of sugars that bacteria use.

Retric 9y ago

Antibiotic resistance jumps across disease types. You often don't notice resistance for less serious diseases because people get better even if the pills did nothing. PS: Horizontal DNA transfer is wacky in single cell organisms. http://amrls.cvm.msu.edu/microbiology/molecular-basis-for-antimicrobial-resistance/acquired-resistance/acquisition-of-antimicrobial-resistance-via-horizontal-gene-transfer http://amrls.cvm.msu.edu/microbiology/molecular-basis-for-an...

nerdponx 9y ago

It's not rhetoric. It's research. https://www.cdc.gov/drugresistance/about.html https://www.cdc.gov/drugresistance/about.html

tclancy 9y ago

I think you're assuming everywhere in the world is like where you are. I remember reading "The Coming Plague" as a kid and being freaked out when the author predicted this given how antibiotics are consumed in poorer economies: some are available on the black market, so you take what's available, not necessarily what kills the thing you have which is how germs build up and then pass on resistance (assuming my 25 year-old memory of the book is accurate).

Fomite 9y ago
Antibiotics are terrifyingly unregulated in the developing world, and resistance is essentially ubiquitous.

Fomite 9y ago

You only notice that because they're the ones that get you sick. The concern is that we generate resistance in your ordinary gut flora, and then via horizontal gene transfer that resistance gets into a pathogen that's actively dangerous.

elihu 9y ago

Something I realized by travelling to Indonesia is that people in developing countries take antibiotics a lot (you can buy Cipro as easily as buying Tylenol in the U.S.) and that they really do need them because they get bacterial infections from bad food or water a lot. It seems like the best thing to do to prevent human over-use of antibiotics would be to convince developing countries to impose stricter food handling regulations and assist them in upgrading their water and sewer infrastructure so that the water that comes from a faucet is safe to drink. If people don't get sick in the first place, they don't need antibiotics.