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2010-08-12 -Short Attention Span Theater-

New superbugs spreading from South Asia: study

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Posted by gorb 2010-08-12 02:15|| E-Mail|| Front Page|| [11137 views ] Top

#1 Thanks again, Diversity!

Posted by Solomon Snish5988 2010-08-12 05:42|| 2010-08-12 05:42|| Front Page Top

#2 "This is why you take them only when you need them."

One of the biggest problems in medicine today is this issue. Overuse of antibiotics in situations when they will do nothing at all has allowed many antibiotics to become obsolete decades before they would have otherwise by getting the bugs tolerant.

Especially a problem with young mommies who think that antibiotics are some sort of automatic thing that you give to kids whenever they have a sniffle to get rid of/prevent colds, which are essentially all caused by various types of virus organisms that aren't affected by antibiotics in any way.

I actually once overheard two young mommies talking in a grocery store, and one of them was complaining about her kid's pediatrician's reticence to prescribe an antibiotic for her kid's cold. The other mommy responded without missing a beat that she should just lie and tell the doc the kid had green mucus to get the magic potion (her words). I have my own ideas about exactly why this willful ignorance exists and persists, but that is a topic for another thread.

Unfortunately, in many communities, there'll be one or two less-than-ethical pediatric docs who will figure out this ignorant demand by parents is a potential money maker, and will attract lots of patients who are kids of parents like that, so they gleefully write, write, write for these medications, creating yet another generation of abusers whose resistant bacteria are a threat to us all. Talk to docs at college clinics and they'll tell you that the minute many students get sick with anything they'll head straight for the infirmary and DEMAND that they be given an antibiotic.

It might be a good idea for those state boards who monitor overprescription of pain pills to do the same with antibiotics. The lives they save may be yours or mine, ultimately.

Posted by no mo uro 2010-08-12 05:57|| 2010-08-12 05:57|| Front Page Top

#3 Media alert. Panic Alert.

There are issues, true. Including that the Indian surgeons and the Thai dental practitioners are operating in a free market. Can't have that. Must have control.

Just keep remembering that around 100,000 people die in the US annually from mistakes in hospitals. The media breathlessly reported every death from Iraq while 20 times as many were dying in their own institutes of medical care.

Posted by Procopius2k 2010-08-12 07:45|| 2010-08-12 07:45|| Front Page Top

#4 Antibiotic resistance is widely mis-understood. Basically resistance occurs once only and then the resistance mechanism spreads through the population of that bacteria and often other bacteria (species).

So while not taking the full course of antibiotics may facilitate the spread of resistant strains, it doesn't, except in very rare circumstances, cause resistance.

The real problem is that there is little money in developing new antibiotics, while the costs are enormous. In part this is due to international conventions that allow developing countries to produce generics without paying royalties.

Posted by phil_b 2010-08-12 08:41|| 2010-08-12 08:41|| Front Page Top

#5 Oh, the joys of globalism. Kill the US economically and bring back biblical plagues at the same time. Joy oh joy.

Posted by Black Charlie Chinemble5313 2010-08-12 11:37|| 2010-08-12 11:37|| Front Page Top

#6 You don't see much ink on the topic, but HIV has played a huge role in developing resistant strains. As the disease weakened the body's defenses these guys were succumbing to all kinds of infections which they could no longer fight off. Bugs any healthy person would shrug off. Doctors pumped them full of antibiotics to keep them alive longer. Maybe extended life a few months. In the meantime, it created the perfect environment to incubate resistant strains.

With new HIV treatments this is less of a problem now, but the damage is done.

On a related topic, I'd like to hear someone explain how taking antibiotics when you are not sick can produce resistant strains. Back when I took biology you actually had to have bacteria present in order to do this.

Posted by Iblis 2010-08-12 17:10|| 2010-08-12 17:10|| Front Page Top

#7 Good question, Iblis, and one which has a fairly simple answer.

Many infections are not of exotic bugs, but overgrowth of ones that are always present in the body in non-threatening numbers. Changes in the immune system or changes in the ratio of one particular bacteria to another often trigger rapid growth and infection of what would otherwise be a normal part of your usual bioload. These are sometimes called opportunistic infections.

Thus, if you are taking an antibiotic at ANY time, there are lots and lots of species of bacteria in your body (skin, mouth, colon, genitals) which are there, not causing any problems at the moment, but building up resistance to whatever you are taking. If at some future time they DO grow out of control, any resistance they gained from being exposed when they were in a harmonious and non-narmful mode will be retained.

Posted by no mo uro 2010-08-12 18:49|| 2010-08-12 18:49|| Front Page Top

#8 On a related topic, I'd like to hear someone explain how taking antibiotics when you are not sick can produce resistant strains. Back when I took biology you actually had to have bacteria present in order to do this.

Answer - Your body is full of harmless and even beneficial bacteria. Taking antibiotics will create the opportunity for resistance to develop. Although developing resistance is an extremely low probability event, but multiple billions of bugs by millions of people taking unessesary antibiotics and someone somewhere will eventually develop resistance.

Once resistance occurs, the mechanism gets filed away in the genetic code available to be switched on when needed (in the harmless bacteria).

At some point in the future a strain of the harmless bug with the resistance mechanism co-infects a person with some harmful infection and the resistance mechanism gets transferred to the harmful bug. From memory via plasmids.

Resistance is generally through multiple (although a small number of) steps. So the more people taking antibiotics, the faster the individual resistance steps occur and the sooner they get the opportunity to combine into full resistance.

Posted by phil_b 2010-08-12 19:16|| 2010-08-12 19:16|| Front Page Top

#9 Does that mean I'm carrying around strains of TB and Staph just waiting to mutate into super bugs and kill...someone else? And then why do those resistant strains always seem to come from hospitals and people in a weakened state from other factors?

Posted by Iblis 2010-08-12 19:41|| 2010-08-12 19:41|| Front Page Top

#10 In a word, Iblis, yes. This happens in all animals, all the time. A little unsettling but true.

Mutant strains coming exclusively from hospitals and weak people? Not "always" Iblis. But your point is well taken.

If a resistant strain takes off in a weak person it can increase its numbers and the possibility of contagion exponentially in a few days. Plus, there are lots of other weak people around (it's a hospital, after all) whose immunity is less than optimal. Plus those people are being visited by relatives and friends and treated by large numbers of health professionals. So naturally the opportunity for resistant strains to have a ground zero in that environment is better than society at large.

Phil, I had forgotten plasmids.. Good point.

Posted by no mo uro 2010-08-12 20:27|| 2010-08-12 20:27|| Front Page Top

#11 People in hospital are much more likely to have multiple concurrent infections, and people with weakened immune systems are much more likely to pass on an infection to others.

Basically hospitals create optimum conditions for the spread of resistant bugs and transfer of resistance across different species. Hospital acquired infections is a huge problem.

Posted by phil_b 2010-08-12 21:14|| 2010-08-12 21:14|| Front Page Top

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