Worse Than AIDS Crisis: Post-Antibiotic Era Means Common Infections Can Kill
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If you have a cold that won’t go away you may go to a doctor, who might prescribe antibiotics even though they will do nothing for a cold. Doctors do this so they can claim they did “something” other than telling the patient to go home, lie down and drink lots of liquids, which would be the proper treatment for the common cold.
Inappropriate antibiotic treatment and overuse of antibiotics have contributed to the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Self prescription of antibiotics is an example of misuse. Many antibiotics are frequently prescribed to treat symptoms or diseases that do not respond to antibiotics or that are likely to resolve without treatment, such as the common cold described above. Also incorrect or suboptimal antibiotics are prescribed for certain bacterial infections. The overuse of antibiotics, like penicillin and erythromycin, have been associated with emerging antibiotic resistance since the 1950s. Widespread usage of antibiotics in hospitals has also been associated with increases in bacterial strains and species that no longer respond to treatment with the most common antibiotics.
According to the World Health Organization, drug resistance today poses a bigger danger worldwide than did AIDS in the 1980s. In a dire-sounding report out today top officials note:
“Without urgent, coordinated action, the world is headed for a post-antibiotic era, in which common infections and minor injuries which have been treatable for decades can once again kill. Indeed, we could see a world where a child’s fall from a bike could mean a ‘fatal infection,'”
“This serious threat is no longer a prediction for the future—it is happening right now in every region of the world and has the potential to affect anyone, of any age, in any country,” the organization says in a press release.
In many countries, for instance, E. coli treatments are powerless in more than half of patients, the AP reports. The report examined resistance in the germs behind illnesses like pneumonia and urinary tract infections; the Telegraph cites routine surgery and common bladder infections in retirement homes as possible dangers of the future. Governments, an expert says, must step up: “The world needs to respond as it did to the AIDS crisis of the ’80s.”
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I’ve probably been dead about 4 years and nobody’s told me….should I still be paying my taxes if I’m dead? 😉
Yes you should Norman.
Oddly, vaccines don’t employ the same mechanisms for protecting us from disease. Instead, by exposing ourselves to the organism…in a “sanitized” state, our bodies learn to recognize the organism and build immunity to it. Brilliant and effective. Furthermore, as we see with flu, it’s possible to evolve the vaccine simply by creating vaccines based on “evolved” organisms.
So, Mr. MM, you’ve opened another can of worms…and that’s the nut jobs who have made a living by undermining faith in vaccines based on what is truly junk science. Thimerosal doesn’t and NEVER DID have anything to do with autism, and the moron who propagated that garbage has been found to be a total and utter fraud…a witting fraud at that.
We have good reason to be skeptical about conventional medicine for many reasons, but that doesn’t mean that the medical community is nothing but a bunch of rapists and murderers. And yet, this is how the anti-medical “tea party” nuts portray them. Vaccines are among the most brilliant inventions of medicine…as are antibiotics. On the one hand, we are sending ourselves back to the stone age by a few crazies refusing to vaccinate and on the other hand we are sending ourselves back to the stone age by another group of crazies (both patients and farmers) abusing antibiotics.
When did humans declare themselves to be an intelligent life form?
Proof-reading…a lost art:
NOT: Campylobacter, which causes virulent disease in humans, were anti-biotic organisms that had evolved resistance to EVERYTHING except a class of drugs called fluoroquinolones.
INSTEAD: Campylobacter, which causes virulent disease in humans, were anti-biotic-RESISTANT organisms that had evolved resistance to EVERYTHING except a class of drugs called fluoroquinolones.
Did you hear that diptheria is now making an appearance in the US? Docs are shocked at the cases they are finding.
I saw that on the local news last night. Not a mention on MSM. They’re too busy with that Sterling nonsense to worry about important news.
From 1995 to ’98 I led an environmental organization focused on pesticides.
Precisely the same phenomenon that’s happening with antibiotics is also happening with chemical pesticides (pesticides, herbicides, etc.). There is exactly zero difference in these phenomena.
The process is dead simple, and Darwin would have understood it instantly. With any chemical assault, the target species will largely be wiped out. But largely does not mean completely. A few critters, whether bugs, weeds, or microorganisms, will survive the onslaught, because – wait for it – these survivors have a natural immunity to the chemical. Those survivors pass on that immunity to their offspring.
And thus “super-organisms” are born and fostered. The continued onslaught with “conventional” tools aids the super-organisms, because we continually wipe out the susceptible critters, reducing competition for the super-organisms.
Overuse of pesticides and antibiotics was a huge concern among environmentalists LONG before I came along, but I spent much of my time in the mid-’90’s, NEARLY 20 YEARS AGO, teaching on this subject. One of our most dire warnings was about the use (abuse) of antibiotics in agricultural animals. 20 years ago, Campylobacter, which causes virulent disease in humans, were anti-biotic organisms that had evolved resistance to EVERYTHING except a class of drugs called fluoroquinolones. Fluoroquinolones were, at that time, the last line of defense for humans infected with these organisms. THERE WAS NOTHING ELSE after fluoroquinolones.
And what was the plan in agriculture? You guessed it. They wanted permission to use fluoroquinolones in animal feed. Short-term economic interests trumped the survival of the human race.
Today, fluoroquinolones are losing their effectiveness: http://www.cddep.org/blog/posts/exploring_resistancemap_rise_fluoroquinolone_resistance_part_1
Why?: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3367372/
We are SO screwed.
There’s a book you might interested in reading. It’s called The Sixth Extinction and I just finished it. Here’s a link to the NYT review:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/16/books/review/the-sixth-extinction-by-elizabeth-kolbert.html?_r=0