6 ms·

We're losing the war against drug-resistant infections faster than we thought

130 points by pseudolus 1y ago

like_any_other 1y ago
Another source of antibiotic resistance (which the article forgets to mention) is their routine use in livestock, preventatively and to accelerate growth. I would wager that is the far more significant contributor, since there's simply much more of it - compare the total number of cattle in places where such use is allowed (meaning cattle are exposed to antibiotics for most of their lives), versus the number of people being treated with antibiotics (i.e. a very limited population, for a very limited period): https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12029767/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12029767/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6017557/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6017557/
- chaostheory 1y ago
  It’s not a coincidence that many of the antibiotic resistant bacteria tend to pop up in areas where the livestock industry is located.
  - burnt-resistor 1y ago
    Industrial meat agriculture is killing us and the Earth ecosystem in manifold preventable ways if we'd just stop being so selfish and doing the same thing and expecting a different result: - Antibiotic-resistant bacteria evolution - Animal cruelty - Pandemic virus evolution - Climate change - Air, water, and soil pollution
    - like_any_other 1y ago
      > if we'd just stop being so selfish You couldn't be more wrong. The overwhelming majority of people are against animal cruelty and creating more antibiotic resistance through cattle farming, even if it means slightly-to-modestly more expensive meat. The reason it continues is a failure to inform (seen the insides of many factory farms on the news lately?), organize, and act to that end. It is not because of selfishness that it continues (except the selfishness of those profiting from it, but there will always be someone selfish, no matter how selfless the average person gets), but because the virtuous have not gathered enough power to stop it (at home and especially abroad [1]). Self-flagellation will accomplish nothing. [1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/antibiotic-use-livestock-marimekko https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/antibiotic-use-livestock-...
      - kilburn 1y ago
        > even if it means slightly-to-modestly more expensive meat. This is a hard one to prove without trying. A lot of people would say that and then buy the cheaper version when the time comes.
      - burnt-resistor 1y ago
        > The overwhelming majority of people are against animal cruelty and creating more antibiotic resistance through cattle farming, You're seem sure of yourself while being incredibly confused. Strawman fallacy. People may half-heartedly express some things like "they'd buy X if X existed at price Y" but then, time-after-time, they don't do it. Actions are all that matter and are the proof. The actions say most people are happy to maintain cognitive dissonance so long as they don't see how the sausage or hamburger is made. Some "less bad" alternatives are offered in some stores, but these aren't necessarily the standard or popular items because the customer is given the choice to buy Brazilian or American beef raised on CAFOs rather than banning them and banning feeding mostly corn diets altogether. Most consumers and most other buyers will simply choose the cheapest option available, no matter the externalities involved. The corporate meat industry encompasses a powerful lobby that has legal, legislative, and media power to maintain the status quo, and most Americans are low/no information consumers who are happy with (was cheap) fast food and don't think or care how it was produced because they're addicted to UPF. Only a small fraction (<~10%) even put a thought into how their choices matter and not all of those have the luxury to afford alternatives because the precariat are even more precarious these days. It would take radical socioeconomic and political change to undertake unpopular, necessary changes to reduce harm from existential threats. This won't happen until it's already too late and people are dying in massive numbers. Proactive harm reduction is avoided because too much kakisto-klepto-plutocratic forms of government are reactive because they don't care or are too stupid to care. Fundamentally: the raising of animals for meat is impossible to regulate to assure anything close to uniform, humane conditions, biosecurity, and climate neutrality... because it necessitates suffering and resource intensive. People who are ideologically wedded to meat profiteering and consumption will espouse all sorts of bad arguments that there can be "organic, grass-fed" pseudo-permaculture-washed approaches possible, but it's really denying irreducible facts about growing large numbers of animals' cross-contamination with wildlife and people, feed inputs, waste pollution, and slaughtering them. There's no rehabbing a dirty industry except making it seem less bad with token, performative, greenwashing campaigns.
- dwd 1y ago
  Something else unmentioned is that 70-80% of hospital acquired infections are related to medical devices that are susceptible to the formation of biofilms where the bacteria create a protective layer that antibiotics can't penetrate. For example antibiotic resistant urinary tract infections caused by the use of catheters. Effective antibiotics simply don't work when they can't reach the infection.
  - amatecha 1y ago
    Oh, that's messed up. Aren't catheters supposed to be air-tight, sterile and single-use? Or do they reuse them?! >__>
    - cyberax 1y ago
      Nothing can be _completely_ sterile all the time. Urinary catheters also tend to move a bit when inserted, so they tend to slowly transport bacteria from the outside into the inside.
    - notarget137 1y ago
      Sure. But the lubricant they use usually contains antibiotics. Go figure.
    - M95D 1y ago
      > air-tight, sterile and single-use That's the packaging. Once you break the seal, it's contaminated from the surrounding air. But that's not even relevant. When the catheter is inserted, it picks up bacteria from the genitals. No washing and disinfection can remove all of them. Also, like @cyberax said, the catheter can move. The longer it's kept in place, the more bacteria gets upstream.
  - nmfisher 1y ago
    Interesting - do you have the source handy?
    - dwd 1y ago
      To be more exact, it is 70-80% of hospital-aquired UTIs are catheter linked. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31532742/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31532742/ The infection rate is initially 3-10% but increases by 5% for every day its left in. Some more information here on biofilm development and sepsis/mortality rates which is chilling. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2963580/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2963580/
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- burnt-resistor 1y ago
  It's used to keep cows alive that would otherwise die from being force-fed corn purely for economic reasons. It's the ranchers' choice to make more money at the expense of suffering of all of us and of the animals they torture. I've listened to former KAFO ranch hands bemoan that it's a truly shameful and disgusting practice that needs to be outlawed globally.
irjustin 1y ago
The whole article talks about tracking and tracking better is helpful I get that but that won't stop it reverse the trend? Even in areas where we have clean data we see the trends. So what's next?
itsme0000 1y ago
I’m really glad this article acknowledges that better access to antibiotics is probably the best solution to the problem. I’ve actually heard people argue the opposite. Many people, even doctors will blame patients for creating antibiotics resistant strains. While it’s true that a resistant strain can develop and spread due to an individual’s actions, those strains will gradually lose their resistance once no longer exposed to antibiotics, so it’s probably better have antibiotics be accessible drugs everywhere to prevent any initial spread and just trust people won’t use them chronically for no reason. Though I’d argue lack of access to antibiotics contributes more to the spread of disease then careless patients stuffing down their mouths, it really depends on what type of bacteria it is. Patients with viruses often misdiagnose themselves as needing antibiotics and that’s another reason it’s not over the counter, that builds resistant bacteria, not inside the patient but in the external environment due to excretion in urine etc. Doctors will often chide patients for not taking the whole bottle of antibiotics once they stop feeling symptoms as if this gives more opportunity for the resistant strain to spread. It’s true it’s probably safer to totally ensure you are free of disease before stopping a medication, but increasing the overall level of antibiotics in the environment boosts resistance in every case. As people on this thread have pointed out the mass use of antibiotics in cattle farming is going to contribute significantly to resistance because it permanently increases the amount of antibiotics in the environment. Other than stopping that not much can be done to prevent this It’s kind of a non-issue on an individual level as resistant strains lose resistance over relatively short periods time, once no longer exposed to the antibiotic, people just assume if the bacteria evolved an advantageous trait it will never lose that trait even though it’s no longer advantageous once it’s environment returns to normal.
- Supermancho 1y ago
  > those strains will gradually lose their resistance once no longer exposed to antibiotics, I've never heard this. Can you cite an example or source for this? How could we be losing if medicine can afford to "wait out" a strain? MRSA's been around 80 years. Call me skeptical.
  - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
burnt-resistor 1y ago
The war is being lost for 3 main reasons: - Overuse in meat agriculture evolving new DRB as a side-effect of profiteering from animal cruelty by force-feeding animals soy and corn. - Overuse for emotional customer satisfaction reasons rather than evidence-based scientific treatment of viruses with totally-inappropriate antibiotics. This isn't a problem limited to the Global South that this article wags its finger at with imperial arrogance. This happens all the time with American primary care doctors dispensing antibiotics without proof of bacterial infection. - Lack of R&D into new drug classes.
- WalterBright 1y ago
  I once went to the doc with symptoms of strep. He prescribed antibiotics. I asked, why didn't you do a strep test first, as I didn't want to take the antibiotics if it wasn't strep? He looked annoyed and did the strep test. The results came back in a few minutes that I had strep.
  - pjc50 1y ago
    I wonder whether the test cost more than the antibiotics. I'm impressed at the speed, though.
    - burnt-resistor 1y ago
      Profits, unreasonable expedience, nor CYA medicine shouldn't be the driving forces. Evidence-based medicine should start with knowing what characteristics or which pathogen it is before dispensing medication. There's only so many prescriptions of a certain class of antimicrobial that can be written before a pathogen evolves, and then it's ICU DoLR time. And then there's the other side-effects: overprescription of Cefdinir for average strep cases has shown to lead to greater risk of infection by resistant C. diff. Microbiome upsets by killing off healthy GI critters too. While delaying prescriptions campaigns like US CDC may be holistically helpful to discourage some overprescription abuse, it doesn't address the lack of sufficient rapid, systematic, integrated clinical pathological screening and surveillance. For maximum human benefit, I think essential medical testing services should have a nationwide option provided at minimal costs for anyone including those without health insurance. Some things shouldn't be completely privatized because of the perverse incentives created, like private equity buying up rural hospitals decimating local care options to favor air ambulance services they also own. I think we can and must do things better and smarter to reduce individual and aggregate harm.
looofooo0 1y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phage_therapy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phage_therapy Basically use dirty water, finely filter it, such that only things as big as phages remain. Put that liquid in a solution of bacteria you want to treat. Filter it again, repeat... In the end you should end up with some phage solution which specifically attacks the bacteria. If these phages don't work anymore, find new ones.
- looofooo0 1y ago
  George Eliava Institute in Tbilisi is where you could get such a treatment. In the West you might be able to source it from food production related suppliers: https://phageguard.com https://phageguard.com. I guess an open wound where treatment with antibiotics fails and loosing your foot etc. is on the table, this might be an option of last resort.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  > In the end you should end up with some phage solution which specifically attacks the bacteria This reminds of the universal cure to disease being a bullet [1]. Phages are promising. That doesn’t mean they can’t hurt you [2]. [1] https://xkcd.com/1217/ https://xkcd.com/1217/ [2] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8310247/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8310247/
  - looofooo0 1y ago
    "we found some adverse events associated with phage therapy, but serious events were extremely rare." The biggest hindrance is that the western process of developing and releasing new medicine is ill-suited for phage treatment.
    - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
      > the western process of developing and releasing new medicine is ill-suited for phage treatment …as evidenced by the booming phage industry somewhere in the east? (The weird thing is this railing against western medicine or whatnot is usually a dead ringer for pseudoscience. Yet phages are a scientifically valid thereaupeutic route [1].) [1] https://www.nature.com/subjects/bacteriophages https://www.nature.com/subjects/bacteriophages
spwa4 1y ago
Don't worry governments worldwide (except perhaps China, who knows) are defunding medical research. And they're defunding nothing faster than research into new antibiotics. This last bit is partially indirect, since it has the problem that while new antibiotics might very well exist, governments will not approve them unless they have no other choice. Yes, nationalized health insurance providers are the majority of the worldwide market. Second a number of markets (notably India, but certainly not just them) will rip off the medication and not pay a dime for it. This all combines to make it really hard to get people to invest in widely applicable antibiotics. Unfortunately that does include direct subsidies as well (governments do ask big pharma what to subsidize). So the money is in medicines that fix one particular fatal illness, medications for which no alternatives exist, that are very difficult to produce. This makes getting approval very easy, and allows for high prices. At least that was the situation ~2016. Since then governments have been "tightening the belt" or whatever they call it and the situation has gotten worse to the point that a number of (especially European) labs now don't exist anymore. Which means even if the defunding is undone they will take a decade to get back up to speed. This is affecting a lot of other things as well. Like the ever-worsening doctor shortage predicted to worsen to the point that even just actual life-saving operations (now ~40% of the total, which is already way too much) won't be able to happen anymore ... by 2035, in the UK. This is not when you get ill, and need a treatment in 6 months, this is about someone closing up internal bleeding when you get hit by a car. Needless to say, the government is defunding education of new surgeons further, worsening the situation. I mean, everything is getting worse, on purpose, in the UK. From roads, public transport, and indeed the NHS. "Doing less with less" seems to be the government motto.
- M95D 1y ago
  > "Doing less with less" seems to be the government motto. People vote for a "slim" government and more free market mechanics. This is it.
  - spwa4 1y ago
    I don't think any sane person would call the UK government slim. And if you check the actual finances there are almost exclusively 2 expenditures: pensions and healthcare.
gmerc 1y ago
You just executed a kill mission on the HQ and general staff in this war, the CDC. Totally gonna change the trajectory
metalman 1y ago
here are simple facts humans are now, and have been for some time, the largest biological niche to exist. biological law: all niches will be filled. all life shares the same chemistry humans are activly digging up and playing with every tiny little other nitche on the planet and moving stuff around, AND useing various genetic edditing technolgys to modify numerous life forms, which are "washed" down the drain after the experiment is over. it goes on.(edit), and on we are so fucked.

130 points by pseudolus 1y ago

Another source of antibiotic resistance (which the article forgets to mention) is their routine use in livestock, preventatively and to accelerate growth. I would wager that is the far more significant contributor, since there's simply much more of it - compare the total number of cattle in places where such use is allowed (meaning cattle are exposed to antibiotics for most of their lives), versus the number of people being treated with antibiotics (i.e. a very limited population, for a very limited period): https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12029767/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12029767/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6017557/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6017557/

chaostheory 1y ago
It’s not a coincidence that many of the antibiotic resistant bacteria tend to pop up in areas where the livestock industry is located.
- burnt-resistor 1y ago
  Industrial meat agriculture is killing us and the Earth ecosystem in manifold preventable ways if we'd just stop being so selfish and doing the same thing and expecting a different result: - Antibiotic-resistant bacteria evolution - Animal cruelty - Pandemic virus evolution - Climate change - Air, water, and soil pollution
  - like_any_other 1y ago
    > if we'd just stop being so selfish You couldn't be more wrong. The overwhelming majority of people are against animal cruelty and creating more antibiotic resistance through cattle farming, even if it means slightly-to-modestly more expensive meat. The reason it continues is a failure to inform (seen the insides of many factory farms on the news lately?), organize, and act to that end. It is not because of selfishness that it continues (except the selfishness of those profiting from it, but there will always be someone selfish, no matter how selfless the average person gets), but because the virtuous have not gathered enough power to stop it (at home and especially abroad [1]). Self-flagellation will accomplish nothing. [1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/antibiotic-use-livestock-marimekko https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/antibiotic-use-livestock-...
    - kilburn 1y ago
      > even if it means slightly-to-modestly more expensive meat. This is a hard one to prove without trying. A lot of people would say that and then buy the cheaper version when the time comes.
    - burnt-resistor 1y ago
      > The overwhelming majority of people are against animal cruelty and creating more antibiotic resistance through cattle farming, You're seem sure of yourself while being incredibly confused. Strawman fallacy. People may half-heartedly express some things like "they'd buy X if X existed at price Y" but then, time-after-time, they don't do it. Actions are all that matter and are the proof. The actions say most people are happy to maintain cognitive dissonance so long as they don't see how the sausage or hamburger is made. Some "less bad" alternatives are offered in some stores, but these aren't necessarily the standard or popular items because the customer is given the choice to buy Brazilian or American beef raised on CAFOs rather than banning them and banning feeding mostly corn diets altogether. Most consumers and most other buyers will simply choose the cheapest option available, no matter the externalities involved. The corporate meat industry encompasses a powerful lobby that has legal, legislative, and media power to maintain the status quo, and most Americans are low/no information consumers who are happy with (was cheap) fast food and don't think or care how it was produced because they're addicted to UPF. Only a small fraction (<~10%) even put a thought into how their choices matter and not all of those have the luxury to afford alternatives because the precariat are even more precarious these days. It would take radical socioeconomic and political change to undertake unpopular, necessary changes to reduce harm from existential threats. This won't happen until it's already too late and people are dying in massive numbers. Proactive harm reduction is avoided because too much kakisto-klepto-plutocratic forms of government are reactive because they don't care or are too stupid to care. Fundamentally: the raising of animals for meat is impossible to regulate to assure anything close to uniform, humane conditions, biosecurity, and climate neutrality... because it necessitates suffering and resource intensive. People who are ideologically wedded to meat profiteering and consumption will espouse all sorts of bad arguments that there can be "organic, grass-fed" pseudo-permaculture-washed approaches possible, but it's really denying irreducible facts about growing large numbers of animals' cross-contamination with wildlife and people, feed inputs, waste pollution, and slaughtering them. There's no rehabbing a dirty industry except making it seem less bad with token, performative, greenwashing campaigns.
dwd 1y ago
Something else unmentioned is that 70-80% of hospital acquired infections are related to medical devices that are susceptible to the formation of biofilms where the bacteria create a protective layer that antibiotics can't penetrate. For example antibiotic resistant urinary tract infections caused by the use of catheters. Effective antibiotics simply don't work when they can't reach the infection.
- amatecha 1y ago
  Oh, that's messed up. Aren't catheters supposed to be air-tight, sterile and single-use? Or do they reuse them?! >__>
  - cyberax 1y ago
    Nothing can be _completely_ sterile all the time. Urinary catheters also tend to move a bit when inserted, so they tend to slowly transport bacteria from the outside into the inside.
  - notarget137 1y ago
    Sure. But the lubricant they use usually contains antibiotics. Go figure.
  - M95D 1y ago
    > air-tight, sterile and single-use That's the packaging. Once you break the seal, it's contaminated from the surrounding air. But that's not even relevant. When the catheter is inserted, it picks up bacteria from the genitals. No washing and disinfection can remove all of them. Also, like @cyberax said, the catheter can move. The longer it's kept in place, the more bacteria gets upstream.
- nmfisher 1y ago
  Interesting - do you have the source handy?
  - dwd 1y ago
    To be more exact, it is 70-80% of hospital-aquired UTIs are catheter linked. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31532742/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31532742/ The infection rate is initially 3-10% but increases by 5% for every day its left in. Some more information here on biofilm development and sepsis/mortality rates which is chilling. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2963580/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2963580/
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
burnt-resistor 1y ago
It's used to keep cows alive that would otherwise die from being force-fed corn purely for economic reasons. It's the ranchers' choice to make more money at the expense of suffering of all of us and of the animals they torture. I've listened to former KAFO ranch hands bemoan that it's a truly shameful and disgusting practice that needs to be outlawed globally.

irjustin 1y ago

The whole article talks about tracking and tracking better is helpful I get that but that won't stop it reverse the trend? Even in areas where we have clean data we see the trends. So what's next?

itsme0000 1y ago

I’m really glad this article acknowledges that better access to antibiotics is probably the best solution to the problem. I’ve actually heard people argue the opposite. Many people, even doctors will blame patients for creating antibiotics resistant strains. While it’s true that a resistant strain can develop and spread due to an individual’s actions, those strains will gradually lose their resistance once no longer exposed to antibiotics, so it’s probably better have antibiotics be accessible drugs everywhere to prevent any initial spread and just trust people won’t use them chronically for no reason. Though I’d argue lack of access to antibiotics contributes more to the spread of disease then careless patients stuffing down their mouths, it really depends on what type of bacteria it is. Patients with viruses often misdiagnose themselves as needing antibiotics and that’s another reason it’s not over the counter, that builds resistant bacteria, not inside the patient but in the external environment due to excretion in urine etc. Doctors will often chide patients for not taking the whole bottle of antibiotics once they stop feeling symptoms as if this gives more opportunity for the resistant strain to spread. It’s true it’s probably safer to totally ensure you are free of disease before stopping a medication, but increasing the overall level of antibiotics in the environment boosts resistance in every case. As people on this thread have pointed out the mass use of antibiotics in cattle farming is going to contribute significantly to resistance because it permanently increases the amount of antibiotics in the environment. Other than stopping that not much can be done to prevent this It’s kind of a non-issue on an individual level as resistant strains lose resistance over relatively short periods time, once no longer exposed to the antibiotic, people just assume if the bacteria evolved an advantageous trait it will never lose that trait even though it’s no longer advantageous once it’s environment returns to normal.

Supermancho 1y ago
> those strains will gradually lose their resistance once no longer exposed to antibiotics, I've never heard this. Can you cite an example or source for this? How could we be losing if medicine can afford to "wait out" a strain? MRSA's been around 80 years. Call me skeptical.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago

burnt-resistor 1y ago

The war is being lost for 3 main reasons: - Overuse in meat agriculture evolving new DRB as a side-effect of profiteering from animal cruelty by force-feeding animals soy and corn. - Overuse for emotional customer satisfaction reasons rather than evidence-based scientific treatment of viruses with totally-inappropriate antibiotics. This isn't a problem limited to the Global South that this article wags its finger at with imperial arrogance. This happens all the time with American primary care doctors dispensing antibiotics without proof of bacterial infection. - Lack of R&D into new drug classes.

WalterBright 1y ago
I once went to the doc with symptoms of strep. He prescribed antibiotics. I asked, why didn't you do a strep test first, as I didn't want to take the antibiotics if it wasn't strep? He looked annoyed and did the strep test. The results came back in a few minutes that I had strep.
- pjc50 1y ago
  I wonder whether the test cost more than the antibiotics. I'm impressed at the speed, though.
  - burnt-resistor 1y ago
    Profits, unreasonable expedience, nor CYA medicine shouldn't be the driving forces. Evidence-based medicine should start with knowing what characteristics or which pathogen it is before dispensing medication. There's only so many prescriptions of a certain class of antimicrobial that can be written before a pathogen evolves, and then it's ICU DoLR time. And then there's the other side-effects: overprescription of Cefdinir for average strep cases has shown to lead to greater risk of infection by resistant C. diff. Microbiome upsets by killing off healthy GI critters too. While delaying prescriptions campaigns like US CDC may be holistically helpful to discourage some overprescription abuse, it doesn't address the lack of sufficient rapid, systematic, integrated clinical pathological screening and surveillance. For maximum human benefit, I think essential medical testing services should have a nationwide option provided at minimal costs for anyone including those without health insurance. Some things shouldn't be completely privatized because of the perverse incentives created, like private equity buying up rural hospitals decimating local care options to favor air ambulance services they also own. I think we can and must do things better and smarter to reduce individual and aggregate harm.

looofooo0 1y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phage_therapy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phage_therapy Basically use dirty water, finely filter it, such that only things as big as phages remain. Put that liquid in a solution of bacteria you want to treat. Filter it again, repeat... In the end you should end up with some phage solution which specifically attacks the bacteria. If these phages don't work anymore, find new ones.

looofooo0 1y ago
George Eliava Institute in Tbilisi is where you could get such a treatment. In the West you might be able to source it from food production related suppliers: https://phageguard.com https://phageguard.com. I guess an open wound where treatment with antibiotics fails and loosing your foot etc. is on the table, this might be an option of last resort.
JumpCrisscross 1y ago
> In the end you should end up with some phage solution which specifically attacks the bacteria This reminds of the universal cure to disease being a bullet [1]. Phages are promising. That doesn’t mean they can’t hurt you [2]. [1] https://xkcd.com/1217/ https://xkcd.com/1217/ [2] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8310247/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8310247/
- looofooo0 1y ago
  "we found some adverse events associated with phage therapy, but serious events were extremely rare." The biggest hindrance is that the western process of developing and releasing new medicine is ill-suited for phage treatment.
  - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
    > the western process of developing and releasing new medicine is ill-suited for phage treatment …as evidenced by the booming phage industry somewhere in the east? (The weird thing is this railing against western medicine or whatnot is usually a dead ringer for pseudoscience. Yet phages are a scientifically valid thereaupeutic route [1].) [1] https://www.nature.com/subjects/bacteriophages https://www.nature.com/subjects/bacteriophages

spwa4 1y ago

Don't worry governments worldwide (except perhaps China, who knows) are defunding medical research. And they're defunding nothing faster than research into new antibiotics. This last bit is partially indirect, since it has the problem that while new antibiotics might very well exist, governments will not approve them unless they have no other choice. Yes, nationalized health insurance providers are the majority of the worldwide market. Second a number of markets (notably India, but certainly not just them) will rip off the medication and not pay a dime for it. This all combines to make it really hard to get people to invest in widely applicable antibiotics. Unfortunately that does include direct subsidies as well (governments do ask big pharma what to subsidize). So the money is in medicines that fix one particular fatal illness, medications for which no alternatives exist, that are very difficult to produce. This makes getting approval very easy, and allows for high prices. At least that was the situation ~2016. Since then governments have been "tightening the belt" or whatever they call it and the situation has gotten worse to the point that a number of (especially European) labs now don't exist anymore. Which means even if the defunding is undone they will take a decade to get back up to speed. This is affecting a lot of other things as well. Like the ever-worsening doctor shortage predicted to worsen to the point that even just actual life-saving operations (now ~40% of the total, which is already way too much) won't be able to happen anymore ... by 2035, in the UK. This is not when you get ill, and need a treatment in 6 months, this is about someone closing up internal bleeding when you get hit by a car. Needless to say, the government is defunding education of new surgeons further, worsening the situation. I mean, everything is getting worse, on purpose, in the UK. From roads, public transport, and indeed the NHS. "Doing less with less" seems to be the government motto.

M95D 1y ago
> "Doing less with less" seems to be the government motto. People vote for a "slim" government and more free market mechanics. This is it.
- spwa4 1y ago
  I don't think any sane person would call the UK government slim. And if you check the actual finances there are almost exclusively 2 expenditures: pensions and healthcare.

gmerc 1y ago

You just executed a kill mission on the HQ and general staff in this war, the CDC. Totally gonna change the trajectory

metalman 1y ago

here are simple facts humans are now, and have been for some time, the largest biological niche to exist. biological law: all niches will be filled. all life shares the same chemistry humans are activly digging up and playing with every tiny little other nitche on the planet and moving stuff around, AND useing various genetic edditing technolgys to modify numerous life forms, which are "washed" down the drain after the experiment is over. it goes on.(edit), and on we are so fucked.