Antibiotic Resistance "A threat to the UK"

[Clinton Huxley]

The Chief Medical Officer has opined that growing resistance to antibiotics is as great a threat to the UK as terrorism. I'd say it was a worse threat. Instead of spending billions shooting rocks in some central Asian shithole, we could have been spending the money on something useful.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-21737844

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I had to wash my hands after reading that.

[Coito ergo sum]

Stands to reason that antibiotics could be eliminated through the use of probiotics. They'll cancel each other out.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Stands to reason that antibiotics could be eliminated through the use of probiotics. They'll cancel each other out.

Sounds Marxist to me.

[Clinton Huxley]

Thing is, not enough money in this for pharma companies to invest too much in it. Not yet, anyway.

[klr]

I think I've taken antibiotics once in the last 30 years or so, so I'm doing my bit.

[Coito ergo sum]

I think it's high time we eliminated antibioticism in our culture. End discrimination against biotics!

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Being radioactive imparts a certain resistance to bacteria.

[Audley Strange]

This story has been on the go since at least 1993. I recall reading a very similar article then (even down to the "going back to the 19th century"crap) because there was much fuss in Nursing about resistant bacteria and MRSA at the time. I'm guessing in that time we've made some advances, but their not prudent to release until absolutely necessary.

[Clinton Huxley]

Hope you are right, Audley. But I doubt it.

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[Audley Strange]

Hope you are right, Audley. But I doubt it.

Sent from my KFTT using Tapatalk 2

Well I recall vaguely something or other about super-anti-biotics, which were in trial at some point about 10 years or so ago. IIRC (and perhaps I don't) they were effective but had bad side effects. They were sitting on some of the more recently released ones for decades. I genuinely think that because they are aware of the resilience of bacteria they don't move out new anti-biotics until it's entirely necessary.

[klr]

The problem with antibiotic resistance/overuse of antibiotics is indeed not new, but it's just getting worse as time goes by. The long-term solution as I understand these things is to look for alternatives to use instead of antibiotics, or at least alongside them.

Antibiotics by themselves are just fuelling an arms race with bacteria, and bacteria by their nature evolve very quickly.

[Coito ergo sum]

Aren't there too many people on the planet anyway?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Aren't there too many people on the planet anyway?

At least one.

[Coito ergo sum]

You cut me deep, Zilla. You cut me very deep.