The end of the antibiotic age

[TheDrake]

Superbug

Colistin is the antibiotic of last resort for particularly dangerous types of superbugs, including a family of bacteria known as carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae, or CRE, which health officials have dubbed "nightmare bacteria." In some instances, these superbugs kill up to 50 percent of patients who become infected. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has called CRE among the country's most urgent public health threats.

“It basically shows us that the end of the road isn’t very far away for antibiotics — that we may be in a situation where we have patients in our intensive-care units, or patients getting urinary tract infections for which we do not have antibiotics,” CDC Director Tom Frieden said in an interview Thursday.

[TheDeamon]

Going to need to develop some better probiotic treatment strategies to make sure a healthy colony of biota that they can kill take up residence before the resistant stuff can get a strong foothold.

Other options include some proactive alternative remedies which involve lifestyle adjustments, although those could outrage more than a few people by themselves. Free airflow and sunshine can do amazing things, just most people don't want to contemplate that option for areas where "the sun doesn't shine" for numerous reasons that I presume don't need to be enumerated.

[LetterRip]

http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/05/everybody-be-cool-a-nightmare-superbug-has-not-heralded-the-apocalypse-yet/

[Pete at Home]

Thanks, LR.  I suspected as much when i saw the scare, and thought, I'd better check with LR.    Give me a buzz some time, been playing with a few ideas I thought might interest you.

I think we should go on the offense with these bacteria.  Wouldn't the genes that the bacteria need in order to resist antibiotics, end up expressed somehow in the cell membrane?  If that's so, then it seems to me that we could engineer a virus to attack such bacteria.  If the virus is specific to proteins specific to bacteria with antibiotic resistant genetics, then most of the intestinal flora would be left intact. 

[TheDrake]

Yeah, there's a lot of sensationalism in the reporting, which is why I highlighted quotes from the CDC, which are surely reputable? The quote in the article, btw, never says that this particular report was about a CRE. It just goes on to talk about CRE as part of the broader concern.

I wonder when the blowback group forms to deny this is happening - probably when it starts being used as an argument for healthcare programs?