http://www.bbc.com/news/health-27204988 The above link will take you to a new report by WHO about antibiotic resistance against various diseases in various nations of the world. Gonorrhea, for example can no longer be cured by any antibiotic for anybody in a number of nations, and other diseases are no longer curable for the strains caught by a rising percentage of the population. One problem is that resistance to an antibiotic is passed on from bacteria of one species to bacteria of other species. WHO is calling for more research both basic research on antibiotic resistance itself and research to develop new antibiotics, and wants the new antibiotics to be inexpensive enough for people from developing nations. The world's pharmaceutical companies could participate as much as they could, but they simply don't have enough income to be able to afford enough research. If pharmaceutical companies did have enough income to do enough research, we wouldn't be in the crisis we are in now. With a Gross World Product of about 60 trillion dollars per year, humanity could afford to do the needed research. For example, one tenth of one percent of the Gross World Product would be 60 billion dollars per year. That would probably be enough for the needed antibiotic research plus a percentage of another areas of research which is related, but would also help with drugs to treat viruses. This other research is in the new area of the computer design of drugs. When that area of medical technology is fully developed, it will be possible to enter the genome of any bacteria or virus into a computer, and the computer would then design a treatment drug and a vaccine. For treatments, the computer would design a molecule which would block a vital biochemical process in the virus or bacteria, and would also not harm any biochemical process in the human body. Sixty billion dollars per year for research, provided by the nations with higher incomes, such as the US, the EU, China, India, Japan, South Korea, and so forth would be a very low cost per nation for protection from diseases. We could get up to speed quickly. Some scientists in other areas, who already know how to do research, could be given a year or so of additional education so that they could do some of the expanded medical research. China is graduating about six million students per year from colleges and universities, so not only is there a pool of scientists in China, but other nations could bring Chinese scientists to their own laboratories.
I lost a relative due to multi-drug resistant sepsis. It is a convoluted story, but the basics were they picked up one case of it as a uroseptic infection following a cath and they flooded them with a series of antibiotics trying to knock the thing out. As soon as they got one infection on the mat, a different resistant infection would develop. It was a death spiral, literally. They also had an undiagnosed abcess in their bowels and by the time they found it and did surgery for it, the infection from there, along with the bacteria that seeped from the small perforation, (combined with their completely stressed out immune system and kidneys) were so drug resistant that even the top shelf nuclear bomb antibiotics were only marginally effective and couldn't keep up in fairly short order. I suspect that no matter where we go on this, it will be a losing battle.
If we do enough research, I think we will be OK, but enough research will be a vast amount of research indeed. Looking at this, we have about 25,000 genes, plus some mutated genes, plus junk DNA which actually has turned out to affect when genes become active, and so forth. Each gene triggers the production of one or more proteins in various amounts at certain times. Then, the proteins interact with one another in various ways. It takes quite a bit of research just to understand one gene, or trace the activities of one protein. Therefore, we have much research to do to fully understand human biochemistry. Let us assume that it will take 10.000 researcher years to fully understand a gene and what it causes in the body. That would give us 25,000 genes times 10 thousand researcher years equals 250 million researcher years. If we were to employ 5 million researchers, each doing the research for 50 years, fully understanding human biochemistry would require 50 years of work. Then, additional research would be required to fully understand the biochemistry of all disease organisms which infect or might mutate to infect, humans. Let us double the number of researchers to 10 million. At $200,000 per year for salary and research expenses of each researcher, that would be 2 trillion dollars per year for the entire program to get us to a point where we could computer design vaccines and treatments within a few days of knowing the genome of a disease organism. We have an adequate pool of skills to do this. With a world population of about 7 billion, we have 70 million people in the top one percent in terms of intelligence. In addition, many people somewhat below the top 1% can do good research too. So here would be no problem fielding 10 million researchers. The Gross World Product is about 60 trillion dollars per year, so 2 trillion dollars would be about 3% of the Gross World Product. Many nations spend more than 3% on their military forces, and diseases are more of a threat than other nations are. In addition, within a few years, spin-off products from the research would expand the Gross World Product by more than the 3% cost, and there would be further expansions of the economy as the years of research went on. Sio I think we can protect ourselves. A full knowledge of human and disease organism biochemistry would be a rather powerful thing.
The only way we will rid the world of bacteria is if we rid the world of all life. As long as there are bacteria,........
Actually we don't need new antibiotics - we need to work smarter and stop using them as a "quick fix" Antibiotic producers are stopping research not because they do not have the money (believe me they DO have the money if they wanted to actually spend it in the right place and not just give whopping profits to shareholders) but it is because they claim antibiotic resistance is outstripping research There is a world wide push to return to first principles - strict aseptic techniques minimal invasive techniques and good old fashioned air flow
No let us stop doing dumb things. Make countries put in place proper antibiotic monitoring. One of the reasons why we have multiresistant TB despite having a vaccine for the disease, is that it takes months to truly clear an infection. We need to spend that money on the countries where the resistant TB is a problem and ensure there is a strict screening program with follow up and support of those who are infected Go back to using simple things like Laminar flow systems under ultra violet combined with appropriate air circulation to reduce the cross infection in clinics and ED These are really cheap and not 100% but they do work You as a consumer of health care can do MAJOR contributions toward ensuring anti-microbial stewardship Stay home when you have "the flu" and stop giving it to work colleagues - especially do not visit relatives in hospital when you are sick Do not insist on doctors giving you antibiotics for viral infections (do not make it better just makes it worse actually) And VACCCINATE!!!
I watched a PBS program on this and not ONE United States drug manufacturer is doing work on new antibiotics including the company that had the best labs for this research because its not profitable over other medical conditions. And doctors need to stop doling out antibiotics for no good reason, we need to stop dosing animals en masses with them etc.
it's the folk that feel better and quit taking their meds or do not have enough money for all the meds they need (saving the meds and using then 2 or 3 times, rather then all at once), they kill off all the week bacteria and leave the strong to multiply .
You may want to ask yourself if they really need them in the first place. I don't take antibiotics. I am saving them for a real rainy day and they usually don't speed things up enough to make it worth it to begin with. Every time I have allergy/sinus issues, I have about everyone I encounter saying "You need to go get you some antibiotics." every time I get a cold, people say, "You need to go get you some antibiotics."; every time I get a scratch, people say, ""You need to go get you some antibiotics." We are a nation addicted to having to take a pill for something. Screw it. I'll suffer through and survive with a better immunity or die with some change in my pocket.
if they did not need them in the first place, then no harm done, the harm comes from needing them, using them and not killing off all the bacteria and letting the remaining strong reproduce and become the majority not using antibiotics wont help you if you later get a antibiotic resistant strain.... then antibiotics are useless ..
If antibiotic resistance is outstripping research, that is not a reason to stop research. That is a reason to increase research to an adequate level. All the other things you mentioned are very important also. This isn't an either-or thing. We should be doing everything which will help.
To the extent that we can get everyone to act as you suggest, we should. However, it usually isn't possible to get that much cooperation from people, so the problem is to protect people who are imperfect in what they do. We can afford to expand medical research many times. The total Gross World Product is about 60 trillion dollars per year. If we increased research by 5% of the Gross World Product, which would be a very modest percentage, we could immediately increase research funding by three trillion dollars per year. Three trillion dollars per year would fund a lot of additional research. Most nations spend more than 5% on their military forces, and the disease situation is more of a threat than enemy nations are.
That is what governments are for --- to do things that private businesses are unable to do, but which still need to be done.
Sorry but who would then produce these antibiotics? Because the drug companies will want a profit and that would still put the purchase of complete courses out of the hands of many in the third world
Growing resistance to antibiotics gets attention of G20 Health Ministers... G20 Health Ministers Take on Antibiotic Resistance May 20, 2017 — Health ministers of the G20 leading economies, meeting for the first time Saturday, agreed to work together to tackle issues such as a growing resistance to antibiotics and to start implementing national action plans by the end of 2018.
