Don't let up in war against antibiotic resistance

[xchrom]

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn21757-dont-let-up-in-war-against-antibiotic-resistance.html

What might a world without effective antibiotics be like? Recently, World Health Organization director-general Margaret Chan sounded a dire warning. She said that thanks to the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, "things as common as strep throat or a child's scratched knee could once again kill". Chan added that "some sophisticated interventions, like hip replacements, organ transplants, cancer chemotherapy and care of pre-term infants would become far more difficult or even too dangerous to undertake".

Antibiotic overuse and underdevelopment has led us to this precipice. Even if we used such drugs as conservatively as possible, bacteria would still develop resistance. But it is our misuse and overuse of these drugs that is accelerating that process. Making matters worse, as old antibiotics lose their effectiveness, new ones to treat serious infections are few and far between.

While medical professionals and public health experts in the US and around the world are encouraging more moderate use in human medicine, the same cannot be said for industrial farms. In the US, for example, 80 per cent of all antibiotics are sold for use in food animal production, most often not to treat sick animals but to make healthy animals grow faster and to compensate for unsanitary and overcrowded conditions. These practices spur the evolution of drug-resistant bacteria, which can spread from animals to farm workers and their families, to nearby communities via air and water, and to consumers of meat, poultry and produce tainted with animal waste.

Data from the US Department of Health and Human Services illustrate the speed at which resistant bacteria are evolving. Just 3 per cent of Salmonella found on chicken breasts were resistant to five or more antibiotics in 2002. By 2010, that number jumped ten-fold. Another report revealed that in 1993, fewer than 2000 people were hospitalised with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). Twelve years later, the superbug was responsible for 368,000 hospitalisations.

[yourout]

1. My gut says the biggest reason for resistant bacteria is factory farms that.....

Pump tons of antibiotics into the food chain and the environment.

[Tumbulu]

2. My life working in Ag tells me that as well

you are correct.

[Warpy]

3. A couple of things are more responsible

First, patients with infections who stopped taking their antibiotics after 3 days because they felt better, allowing the more resistant bugs to proliferate in their systems. This is an even bigger problem in the developing world where antibiotics are OTC as soon as they're approved and poor people take as few as possible because they can't afford a full course.

Second, hospitals that were too cheap to allow their nurses working with MRSA infected patients scrub privileges or even surgical covers for their shoes. Most of the community acquired MRSA is because nurses and other workers tracked it out of hospitals and into communities on their footwear or contaminated public transit with it on their uniforms.

The golden age of antibiotics is about over. Few new ones are being found and developed and the bugs are winning the race against the ones that still work.

[eppur_se_muova]

4. Don't forget black-market antibiotics ...

prostitutes in the Phillipines (and no doubt other countries as well) would take large doses of penicillin constantly, to "protect" themselves from STDs ... the inevitable result, of course, was lots of penicillin-resistant organisms.

And China's overuse of antiobiotics makes US ag look enlightened in comparison -- they've got antiobiotics in their honey, from overfeeding it to bees.