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(Scary to contemplate): Are you ready for a world without antibiotics?
guardian.co.uk ^ | 12 August 2010 | Sarah Boseley

Posted on 08/23/2010 12:17:34 PM PDT by Publius804

Just 65 years ago, David Livermore's paternal grandmother died following an operation to remove her appendix. It didn't go well, but it was not the surgery that killed her. She succumbed to a series of infections that the pre-penicillin world had no drugs to treat. Welcome to the future.

The era of antibiotics is coming to a close. In just a couple of generations, what once appeared to be miracle medicines have been beaten into ineffectiveness by the bacteria they were designed to knock out. Once, scientists hailed the end of infectious diseases. Now, the post-antibiotic apocalypse is within sight.

Hyperbole? Unfortunately not. The highly serious journal Lancet Infectious Diseases yesterday posed the question itself over a paper revealing the rapid spread of multi-drug-resistant bacteria. "Is this the end of antibiotics?" it asked.

Doctors and scientists have not been complacent, but the paper by Professor Tim Walsh and colleagues takes the anxiety to a new level. Last September, Walsh published details of a gene he had discovered, called NDM 1, which passes easily between types of bacteria called enterobacteriaceae such as E. coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae and makes them resistant to almost all of the powerful, last-line group of antibiotics called carbapenems. Yesterday's paper revealed that NDM 1 is widespread in India and has arrived here as a result of global travel and medical tourism for, among other things, transplants, pregnancy care and cosmetic surgery.

"In many ways, this is it," Walsh tells me. "This is potentially the end. There are no antibiotics in the pipeline that have activity against NDM 1-producing enterobacteriaceae. We have a bleak window of maybe 10 years, where we are going to have to use the antibiotics we have very wisely...

(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Health/Medicine; Science; Society
KEYWORDS: antibiotics; disease; infections
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1 posted on 08/23/2010 12:17:36 PM PDT by Publius804
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To: Publius804

My former roommate is a doctor and he told me years ago that this would happen. Research into antibiotics hasn’t happened in years.


2 posted on 08/23/2010 12:19:28 PM PDT by VA_Gentleman ("Poor Al Gore. Global warming completely debunked via the very internet you invented." -Jon Stewart)
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To: Publius804
we are going to have to use the antibiotics we have very wisely

You can start by not prescribing them for absolutely everything!

3 posted on 08/23/2010 12:21:40 PM PDT by Puppage (You may disagree with what I have to say, but I shall defend to your death my right to say it)
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To: Publius804

If Obamacare becomes a reality, a great deal of research money will be syphoned off for other projects. The redistribution of money by government to pet projects will be very detrimental to our health.


4 posted on 08/23/2010 12:22:09 PM PDT by mia
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To: Publius804
"Once, scientists hailed the end of infectious diseases. Now, the post-antibiotic apocalypse is within sight. "

Not to worry.

Just put algore on it.

He'll fix the problem right up with the same superior creative intellect he used to invent the Internet and reverse the evil of everyone but him who uses fossil fuels.

5 posted on 08/23/2010 12:23:58 PM PDT by TheClintons-STILLAnti-American
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To: Publius804

Learn how to use garlic, honey, oil of oregano, etc.


6 posted on 08/23/2010 12:25:29 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man (I'd like to tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.)
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To: Publius804
"The emergence of antibiotic resistance is the most eloquent example of Darwin's principle of evolution that there ever was," says Livermore.

I dont know whether it's the most eloquent, but it certainly provides us with a useful example.

7 posted on 08/23/2010 12:25:29 PM PDT by freespirited
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To: mia

If your QALY score isn’t high enough and you’re not important enough, no antibiotics for you.


8 posted on 08/23/2010 12:26:04 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man (I'd like to tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.)
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To: Puppage
You can start by not prescribing them for absolutely everything!

If they are not prescribed for everything, then an attorney will sue the non-prescriber for not prescribing.

"Ladies and genetlemen of the jury, all the respondent had to do was simply write out a prescription for an inexpensive, commonly available drug. It would have taken 5 seconds out of his busy schedule. Apparently the respondent simply did not care and now a child is dead."

9 posted on 08/23/2010 12:27:24 PM PDT by wideawake
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To: Publius804

Last year I was hit hard by MRSA. Put me in the hospital for four days. It took several months to get it out of my system.

The drugs that finally took care of it was a combination of older antibiotics.

My doctor told me that many of the new strains have become resistant to the new drugs and have actually left themselves open for attack via the older stuff.

It worked for me.


10 posted on 08/23/2010 12:27:49 PM PDT by OldMissileer (Atlas, Titan, Minuteman, PK. Winners of the Cold War)
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To: Publius804

two thumbs up for anti-biotics. Best medicine ever


11 posted on 08/23/2010 12:27:57 PM PDT by 4rcane
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To: Secret Agent Man

: D


12 posted on 08/23/2010 12:28:02 PM PDT by mia
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To: Publius804
Time to revisit Nature's Antibiotic
13 posted on 08/23/2010 12:28:20 PM PDT by PeaceBeWithYou (De Oppresso Liber! (50 million and counting in Afganistan and Iraq))
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To: freespirited

Or as Jeff Goldblum said in Jurassic Park, “Life finds a way.”


14 posted on 08/23/2010 12:28:24 PM PDT by dfwgator
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To: Publius804

My wife got a Klebsiella infection a few years ago following surgery. The area that got the infection had to be completley cut out, what was a wound the size of a walnut became the size of an orange. Most antibiotics failed, she had to get a pic line (IV) and administer very potent antibiotics that cost 1000.00 a pop twice a day. It took many months for her to recover. We were told that 50% die.

This is a very serious matter.


15 posted on 08/23/2010 12:28:41 PM PDT by Frenchtown Dan
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To: Secret Agent Man

or green tea. They may have antibiotics properties, but they’re not as strong


16 posted on 08/23/2010 12:29:07 PM PDT by 4rcane
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To: VA_Gentleman

“My former roommate is a doctor and he told me years ago that this would happen.”

Probably cuz he knew he and his colleagues were over prescribing the ecisting drugs to anyone with a cold (which is not helped by antibiotics anyway).

A lot of doctors these days are little more than salesmaen for big Pharma.


17 posted on 08/23/2010 12:29:24 PM PDT by Pessimist
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To: freespirited

“I dont know whether it’s the most eloquent, but it certainly provides us with a useful example”

So is the emergence of weeds which are resistant to Roundup.


18 posted on 08/23/2010 12:30:20 PM PDT by Pessimist
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To: freespirited
Does adaptability equate to created by chance, and evolved from nothing?

I don't think so. This just shows that life forms are adaptable, self-preserving entities.

19 posted on 08/23/2010 12:31:05 PM PDT by J Edgar
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To: Publius804

The problem is NOT ENOUGH antibiotics

they give you so little in an attempt to avoid developing a tolerance and prevent kindy failure... but all that does is allow the strongest bacteria to survive.

They should whack you up with enough to kill everything- so much that you have to eat yogurt and special stomach bacteria so you can digest food again

I was sick for almost 2 years from food poisoning- I finally cured myself by tripling my antiobiotics until it was gone, STARTING with one massive dose, and finishing with one after 3 days to let my body rest.

I dont know if I damaged my kidneys or not but I felt 1000% better for the first time in 2 years. And I would RATHER die than continue to live like that.


20 posted on 08/23/2010 12:31:55 PM PDT by Mr. K (Physically unable to proofreed (<---oops! see?))
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