antibiotic resistance

[benl]

I'd say it's a pretty big deal, that's always kind of the case when the WHO get involved. Antibiotics are estimated to add 20 years on to average life expectancy (though vaccination and sanitation play a far larger role). Resistant strains of bacteria kill around half a million in Europe each year, way higher than the global terrorism tally. To a point there is an element of what they call harvesting, that is those who are dying, dying faster but the concerns are significant. The last new antibiotic developed was in the 80s and rates of resistance are climbing. We're now recycling so older antibiotics that have long been unused. The danger is we create a selection pressure that these bacteria become common place, or spontaneously change so as to become more virulent. Whilst at the moment it might be an someone at the end of their life, in the future this could be passed on to the young and fit and our usual arsenal doesn't work. At the moment it's kind of like the fossil fuels and greenhouses, the effect is small but we're running out of time and the effect is becoming greater.

[guzzi]

I have survived 60 years with no antibiotics, as far as I can remember. When I do need them, in a situation such as the one Ballaughbiker described, there's a fair chance the bugs that are infecting me will have evolved to be antibiotic resistant because doctors have been dishing out antibiotics for sore throats and respiratory infections that will get better anyway, and might well not be bacterial in any case.

 

That, and the practice of using them to modify gut flora in farm animals so that they fatten quicker.

 

We deserve this, as I said.

[Lxxx]

I agree with the sentiment Lxxx but there's a bit of wishful thinking in your post. Even bacteria that do you no harm (you might actually need them) in one part of your body can wreak havoc in other parts of that same body. It's not as straightforward an issue as you have described.

 

That's partly my point. In a balanced host (body) the bacteria live symbiotically in harmony. It's how nature intended. When humans introduce a whole number of things into the equation which throw it totally out of kilter (chemicals of all kinds, GMO, manufactured 'food-type products', permanent stress, etc etc...) then things go wrong. We then think that the proliferation of bacteria are the problem and try to blast them, when in reality they are the symptom not the cause and without addressing the root causes things will revert.

Humans think they can outsmart nature but it will always try and find an equilibrium.

[guzzi]

There's a germ of truth (phwar phwar) in what you say, Lxxx, as far as things like our healthy skin and gut flora are concerned. But there are tons of pathogenic bacteria that killed us by the million long before the things you mention were around. Plague, Tuberculosis, Syphilis just to name a few.

 

The problem isn't the proliferation of bacteria, it is the evolution of bacteria that already exist to survive the chemicals we throw at them to try to kill them. Unless we work hard to find new ways to kill them, the killer diseases of yesterday will start killing us by the million again. No amount of balancing the host's natural population of bacteria will address that.

[ballaughbiker]

It's only the pathogens that cause us harm. I was trying to describe that a particular bacterium can be beneficial in one part of the body but pathogenic in others. E. coli is a typical example in that it is actually beneficial in the lower gut stopping other harmful bacteria from multiplying (an example of your balance description). However if it get into the bladder of kidneys it can wreake havoc and cause permanent damage or even death. Same bug, very different effects . It's not a simple scenario.

 

I well remember in the 50s my mother rushing me to the tap after cutting my finger outside and making me hold it there for minutes. She had been brought up in an era where it was possible to, say, cut your finger in the garden on Sunday and be dead with septicaemia by Friday. Those days may well return if we don't stop abusing these life saving drugs.

 

Patients are part of this responsibility and shouldn't expect a prescription every time you go to the doctor with a bad cold. Of course, the docs shouldn't write the script if they think something will resolve itself without but neither should we get cross because they refused something we expected because 'it worked' before.

[Chinahand]

I'm like ballaughbiker I sort of agree with Lxxx's sentiment, but think there is too much wishful thinking in it.

 

Nature isn't harmonious, it is a balance of forces and often goes out of equilibrium. "Nature intends" bacteria to double their number every 20 minutes until food supplies run out. There is nothing harmonious about this - deer and lions don't have a harmonious life and nor do humans and micro-organisms. We balance each other, certainly when the immune system and ecosystem is in balance it can be mutually beneficial, but that is by its nature unstable.

 

A mutation here, a cut there, a bacteria finding itself somewhere new (and it is continuously trying to see where new it can live) then what nature intends can be hugely detrimental to human health.

 

So, yes, let's try and stay healthy, with good, unstressed immune systems and a diversity of micro-organisms living with us to attempt to keep the whole in balance.

 

But there is no stable sweet spot in this "as nature intended" - it is ever changing & evolving and there is no guarantee what so ever that it will be to our benefit or a happy equilibrium, I'm sad to say.

[philwebs]

Delete if inapproprite.

 

Yesterday, unprovoked, above and behind knee, large terrier. Thank you.

 

Yesterday tetanus and 3 week high dose antibiotics as a high risk of infection due to deep bite (the ones in the news).

 

I have had a spltting headache since first tablet, lovely. Must take another now.

 

I have done what I can, I do not wish to elaborate. Of course it is nothing.

 

Taxpayer will cover the costs, thanks.

[quilp]

Delete if inapproprite.

 

Yesterday, unprovoked, above and behind knee, large terrier. Thank you.

 

Yesterday tetanus and 3 week high dose antibiotics as a high risk of infection due to deep bite (the ones in the news).

 

I have had a spltting headache since first tablet, lovely. Must take another now.

 

I have done what I can, I do not wish to elaborate. Of course it is nothing.

 

Taxpayer will cover the costs, thanks.

 

Was it a Border Terrier ...?

[Lxxx]

I'm like ballaughbiker I sort of agree with Lxxx's sentiment, but think there is too much wishful thinking in it.

 

Nature isn't harmonious, it is a balance of forces and often goes out of equilibrium. "Nature intends" bacteria to double their number every 20 minutes until food supplies run out. There is nothing harmonious about this - deer and lions don't have a harmonious life and nor do humans and micro-organisms. We balance each other, certainly when the immune system and ecosystem is in balance it can be mutually beneficial, but that is by its nature unstable.

 

A mutation here, a cut there, a bacteria finding itself somewhere new (and it is continuously trying to see where new it can live) then what nature intends can be hugely detrimental to human health.

 

So, yes, let's try and stay healthy, with good, unstressed immune systems and a diversity of micro-organisms living with us to attempt to keep the whole in balance.

 

But there is no stable sweet spot in this "as nature intended" - it is ever changing & evolving and there is no guarantee what so ever that it will be to our benefit or a happy equilibrium, I'm sad to say.

 

But things that are detrimental to human health are not necessarily detrimental to the overall ecosystem. Maybe 'equilibrium' was the wrong word, a kind of homeostasis then is constantly being reached and breached on a rolling basis.

I think of the current situation with antibiotics as one of those fairground games where you have to bash the head of a protruding puppet, only to see it pop up elsewhere and the object is to keep bashing them for as long as you can. This is where we are as it clearly cannot go on indefinitely.

However e-coli in one person can be deadly and in another it can be squashed by the hosts immune system without it registering as a problem. We've been blessed with the most efficient, innate counter balance and we have a lot of tools in our own armoury to combat the changing internal landscape. Some of us choose to abuse it and then go running to the doctor to ask for a quick fix, which is part of the whole problem.

[the stinking enigma]

Equilibrium or not have to say that even though the risks were known, feeding antibiotics to pigs to fatten them up seems a little bit irresponsible to say the least

[ballaughbiker]

Understatement of the week stinky.

[Lxxx]

Equilibrium or not have to say that even though the risks were known, feeding antibiotics to pigs to fatten them up seems a little bit irresponsible to say the least

 

I wonder if it's widespread within the island's farming community?

[paul's got wright]

it depends, does that include halal meat? i don't think it qualifies as halal if its had antibiotcs.

[ballaughbiker]

A bit about this in the Grauniad

 

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/20/antibiotics-apocalypse-research-resistance-threat-breakthrough

[HeliX]

 

Equilibrium or not have to say that even though the risks were known, feeding antibiotics to pigs to fatten them up seems a little bit irresponsible to say the least

I wonder if it's widespread within the island's farming community?

 

Doubt it, not allowed to do it in the EU. Banned basically everywhere other than China + America for the purpose of growth. Still allowed to use it to fight infections in a herd, of course, but not as a blanket measure.

 

The other half of the problem is Indians taking antibiotics for literally everything.

 

 

70 years is all we managed out of antibiotics. 70 years. And we've squandered the lot. Great job.

 

 

 

@Ballaugh I gotta ask though, has anyone you know ever gotten septicemia from a normal cut? Yes, without antibiotics it would be fatal, but it's not like you chug antibiotics down every time you nick yourself on a bit of barbed wire, or a bottle top, or anything else for that matter. Hell, I can't remember the last time my hands weren't covered in cuts (which rather belies my profession as an office-worker!) but I've not had to take anything for any of them yet... Hopefully it stays that way as soon there won't be anything worth taking.