Posted on 11/26/2013 6:45:55 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Anyone worried about the limits of antibiotics is someone completely uneducated about medical phages...or worse...a fear monger who knows her audience is uneducated.
Maybe we will end up like http://animal.discovery.com/tv-shows/monsters-inside-me
I think its the other way around.
I think antibiotic resistance occurs from inadequate use of antibiotics rather than overuse.
Instead of killing off the harmful bacteria, the antibiotics are stopped too soon. No culture is done to make sure they are defeated, and so they come back having been selected for resitance.
Refusing antibiotics simply allows the bacteria to spread to other people, increasing the chance that resistance will develop.
Combine that with poor hygiene in hospitals and you have a recipe for culturing and spreading resistant bugs.
And another thing I don’t get. Countries like Mexico make antibiotics available over the counter. Are they seeing more resistance develop than we are with our strict controls? And if so, why does there not seem to be any international push for control in these countries?
Back in 2000 there were all kinds of nominations and lists of the greatest men of the 20th century. I remember there was never a mention of Alexander Fleming who may have helped mankind more than any of them.
I read somewhere that before anti-biotics, 90 per cent of deaths were caused by infectious diseases. Now only around 10% die from them.
The only time I've needed an antibiotic is when I've had to have surgery with a lengthy hospital stay. I've had manure covered wounds, punctures, lacerations, tore off nails, animal bites, and even had a Lamma spit in my mouth once. Not one of those times did I get an infection. Yet one three hour surgery with a hospital stay and I end up having to have the entire pharmacy in drip bags for weeks.
Not one of those times did I get an infection. Yet one three hour surgery with a hospital stay and I end up having to have the entire pharmacy in drip bags for weeks.
Now-a-days they put you on an IV with a bag of antibiotics before and during surgery as a preventative measure. There are a lot of nasty bugs in hospitals.
The new field of synthetic biology offers some hope. That goes both ways, of course. An enemy might “build” a strain of bird flu that would wipe out half the human race, only to be countered by another life form that “cures ” it.
My maternal grandparents lost their first baby at one year old around 1900. They then raised 12 more to adulthood. My Mother mentioned to me that Grandmother was asking about that baby who died just as she was dying. Hoping to see him again.
My paternal Grandmother raised all 9 to adulthood. Both did so at a time when there were no antibiotics.
Blood poisoning, as it was called, carried away a lot of working guys. My great-uncle, a healthy guy, got a bad cut on the hand, was carelessly treated by the company quack and was dead within two weeks, leaving behind a pregnant wife and a two year old.
Oh, a climate change idiot! Turned me off immediately.
My Brother got blood poisoning from using a brass pin to pick out a sliver of wood from his hand. He went into the hospital when it got to looking bad and it was touch and go for several days but they finally cured him.
Without anti-biotics he would have died.
I grew up in the ‘50s and the death of Calvin Coolidge’s son from blood poisoning was even then a commonly told cautionary tale. The point being how helpless someone as powerful the president was against an ordinary infection. “Wear your socks, be careful not to get a blister”: I must have heard it a hundred times from my parents and teachers.
I'd suspect the infection more likely came in with the sliver than the pin if it really was brass. Bacteria don't live very long on the surface of copper and copper alloys.
We’ll come up with an antibiotic that switches on/off and between species and variants fast enough to outrun their adaptive rate.
Irresponsible use of antibiotics is what causes resistance. Inadequate use is even worse than overuse in some cases,
The worst case is the totally irresponsible use of antibiotics by HIV positive patients and the doctors who treat them .
HIV patients are subject to a wide range of oppertunistic infections as their immune systems become increasingly weakened. Despite this, many do not adjust their life styles and engage in risky behaviors which transmits many diseases.
Irresponsible Doctors use massive doses of antibiotics to treat these infections in immuno depressed patients who then spread the the increasingly drug resistant strains to others. in a vicious cycle that drives the rapid development of drug resistant microorganisms.
This is where drug resistant MERSA , gonorrhea and TB came from, along with a host o other emerging new strains of nasty bugs
I honestly don’t know the reason but from a young age I was always warned to never use a straight pin to dig out a splinter. Always use a steel needle.
I too have heard that copper kills bacteria. It would seem it should be just the opposite but it wasn’t.
I remember Mother used to cure impetigo with ammoniated mercury. It would work too but now a days they would probably not let you use anything with mercury in it.
In 1940, my dad got an infection from a tick-bite and ended up with a fused hip because of erosion from infection. He nearly died during the operation. Anti-biotics were available to the military, and much of it went into the camps to cure the rampant VD. More than to the battle-wounded. But my dad couldn’t get any and almost died.
I dont remember how many years its been since I’ve had antibiotics. Whenever I get a scratchy throat or even a bladder infection, I start taking colloidal silver I’ve got my husband doing it now too and he’s a veterinarian.
They also have you betadine scrub the area of incision at home twice a day in advance of the surgery to kill surface bacteria. To me it makes it worse! There are good flora growing in the area which kill or thwart off the bad bugs. You kill everything and it’s post operative chaos for the turf wars.
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