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Monday, March 11, 2013

Panic Here Come the Superbugs

Posted by Eli Sanders on Mon, Mar 11, 2013 at 6:00 AM

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria with the potential to cause untreatable infections pose "a catastrophic threat" to the population, the chief medical officer for Britain warns in a report calling for urgent action worldwide.

Also: "The problem of microbes becoming increasingly resistant to the most powerful drugs should be ranked alongside terrorism and climate change on the list of critical risks." One root of the problem: doctors over-prescribing, and scared patients over-demanding, antibiotics for every little thing.

Meanwhile, the CDC is warning that a new SARS-like virus has popped up in the Middle East.

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Another root problem: drug companies see little money in antibiotics and thus put little money in researching newer, more effective antibiotics.

And related to over prescription, patients want and expect antibiotics for everything (cold, sore throat, bronchitis, ear ache, etc). And doctors think it is easier to just do it than educate a little and risk the patient finding a new doctor and not coming back.

Posted by MoDave on March 11, 2013 at 6:09 AM

On the subject of drug resistant pandemics . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUAvTn3uz…

Posted by Ken Mehlman on March 11, 2013 at 6:39 AM

I wouldn't so quickly place the blame with doctors over-prescribing as opposed to people taking them on their own. Lots of countries don't require a prescription for antibiotics, and they're often the countries with the least eduction about how they should be used, so people just order some up for every cold or flu that they get.

Posted by doceb on March 11, 2013 at 6:54 AM

Don't forget consumer disinfectants.

Posted by Matt from Denver on March 11, 2013 at 7:01 AM

@1: I hope doctors aren't prescribing antibiotics for the cold. That is caused by a virus.

Posted by delirian on March 11, 2013 at 7:03 AM

@4: That is a misconception. I have never heard of anything adapting to an alcohol based disinfectant. The problem here is the drugs.

Posted by delirian on March 11, 2013 at 7:06 AM

Superbugs reside in hospitals and nursing homes, largely. If you can avoid it, stay the hell away.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/natio…

http://www.cdc.gov/HAI/burden.html

Posted by Sean Kinney

on March 11, 2013 at 7:26 AM

This is how I imagined the end of human kind. After all, it is our discovery of hygiene and antibiotics that has allowed us to live in large cities. Plague was a major stumbling block to civilization. Now we live by the millions next to each other, in close quarters.

Posted by Pope Peabrain on March 11, 2013 at 7:45 AM

@8 Yes, humans are the only animals that live in close quarters, millions strong. No other animal does since they have been obviously wiped out....

Posted by Former Lurker on March 11, 2013 at 8:32 AM

@9: I get your point, they live together at great cost, and we'd think very differently about it if it were humans. Let's hypothetically attribute bee colony collapses to some bacterial infection. Some bee colonies will be able to fight off this infection and pass along the gene for doing so, continuing the species. Other colonies will die off completely.

Now, apply the same situation to humans. Billions of people would die, which is not something that most people would shrug off.

Posted by doceb on March 11, 2013 at 8:58 AM

One should worry more about the regular addition of antibiotics in feed to healthy livestock than antibiotics given to the sick.

Posted by sloegin on March 11, 2013 at 9:19 AM

@6: alcohol-based gels (Purell and similar) are johnny-come-latelies in the disinfection game. Other major categories, some used for more than a century, include quaternary ammonium compounds ("quats"), phenolics (includes the triclosan in soaps and toothpaste), and iodophores.

There is evidence that constantly drenching ourselves and our surroundings in these things is producing resistance in some pathogens, and may have other deleterious health effects.

Posted by rob!

on March 11, 2013 at 9:20 AM

Those same people demanding antibiotics are probably the same ones who stop taking them as soon as they start to feel better instead of finishing the regime they were prescribed.

Posted by treehugger on March 11, 2013 at 9:58 AM

@ 11, I don't perceive why this should be regarded as "either/or." We can be concerned about both.

Posted by Matt from Denver on March 11, 2013 at 10:34 AM

Antibiotics are given to farm animals indiscriminately and in far greater amounts than their only appropriate use -- for treating illness. Doctors prescribing them when they are not necessary represent a small fraction of ovetall antibiotic usage. All if it contributes to the development if resistance, which is inevitable, but we are accelerating the process by pumping them into livestock, with little to show for it other than larger profit margins for farmers. This practice should be illegal.

Posted by blip on March 11, 2013 at 10:53 AM

Overprescription of antibiotics to humans is a problem, and it also icnreases the risk of health problem in the human it is prescribed to, because it kills off benign bacteria. However, as 11 and 15 point out, the use with food animals is far more profound and wasteful. Not only are healthy animals given vast quantities of antibiotics to allow them to live in generally bad conditions more safely, but some forms of raising fish for food involves just dumping vast quantities of antibiotics into the water where the fish are.

I'd certainly support educating doctors and patients, but changing the way food is handled is vastly more important.

Posted by uncreative on March 11, 2013 at 3:44 PM