End of the world as we know it? Superbug gene found in animals and people in china

[Svnla]

Antibiotic resistance gene found in China likely to spread worldwide, researchers say.

A new gene that makes bacteria highly resistant to a last-resort class of antibiotics has been found in people and pigs in China — including in samples of bacteria with epidemic potential, researchers say.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/antibiotic-resistance-colistin-1.3325942


Yike.

 

[Ruptga]

Meh.

It's not good, but it's probably not the end of the world. And even if it is at least we can all blame the Chinese one last time before we go.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Get all your surgery while you can!!!

 

[Rage187]

likely created by the Chinese to wipe out the rest of the world. What, are you going to stop asian people from coming here? Racist!

 

[Sonikku]

I saw this movie already and it'll pan out in the end. Samuel L Jackson's got our backs.

 

[TheVrolok]

Gotta cull the herd somehow.

 

[Sonikku]

Gotta cull the herd somehow.

We need to decrease the surplus population.

 

[TheVrolok]

I saw this movie already and it'll pan out in the end. Samuel L Jackson's got our backs.

 

[Gooberlx2]

Samuel L Jackson's got our backs.

You mean Laurence Fishburne?

 

[CraKaJaX]

Another story the media can jump all over and stick a "BREAKING NEWS!!!!" banner under. Oh wait, that's all of them.

 

[K7SN]

Happened within the last 100 years; 1/3 of the population of the world got infected but mere 50 to 100 million people died. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1918_flu_pandemic

 

[William Gaatjes]

It is on a plasmid. So it does spread fast. Bacteria lend out plasmids to each other all the time. But until a dangerous airborn bacteria has it, not much to worry about for now. But it is inevitable to happen. Plasmids are exchanged all the time. Something aggressive that can stand up against the immune system and causes pneumonia combined with that gene would be something to seriously worry about. :|

 

[edro]

Happened within the last 100 years; 1/3 of the population of the world got infected but mere 50 to 100 million people died. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1918_flu_pandemic

Well that was a fun read.
Interesting how it stopped so abruptly.

In Philadelphia, for example, 4,597 people died in the week ending 16 October, but by 11 November, influenza had almost disappeared from the city.

Another theory holds that the 1918 virus mutated extremely rapidly to a less lethal strain. This is a common occurrence with influenza viruses: there is a tendency for pathogenic viruses to become less lethal with time, as the hosts of more dangerous strains tend to die out.

 

[Bacstar]

Reading this reminded me of this game called Plague Inc Evolved , I got off Steam. Design a plague of various types (bacteria, virus, etc.), evolve it, and attempt to wipe out the population of the planet before humanity researches a cure.

Fun to play, but scary when you think about something like this happening in real life.

 

[Brainonska511]

It's not a surprise to see the rise in antibiotic resistance when antibiotics are used in such a cavalier manner. It's been shown that even sub-lethal exposure to antibiotics can increase existing resistance mechanisms and lead to novel mechanisms as time goes by. And even excluding those things, bacteria naturally harbor resistance genes (for example, a dysentery strain from WWI was resistant to some modern antibiotics before they were even discovered). It's a constant battle in nature between offense and defense (and most, if not all, of our antibiotics are derived from natural products (stuff found in nature)).

However, the irresponsible use of antibiotics (countries where you can get them sans prescription and using them as growth promoters in animal feed) as well as other environmental sources (like sewage from hospitals and households) are going to pose a major problem over the next several decades, as this will further promote resistance to existing drugs while at the same time, we have a big issue of few antibiotics with novel mechanisms of action being developed and approved.

Happened within the last 100 years; 1/3 of the population of the world got infected but mere 50 to 100 million people died. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1918_flu_pandemic

I don't think we'll have to worry so much about an epidemic of bacterial infections, but we will be entering an era similar to the pre-antibiotic era, where we don't have any effective drugs to treat infections. As it stands now, ~2 million Americans acquire a resistant infection every year and ~23,000 will die. This costs us tens of billions of dollars in direct and indirect costs, and with the rising prevalence of drug resistance, it's likely we'll see more people die and costs rise further.

Gotta cull the herd somehow.

Why do we have to "cull the herd"?

 

[TheVrolok]

Why do we have to "cull the herd"?

Really meant it tongue-in-cheek; however, there's some merit to it. Population growth out of proportion to resource availability (or at least lack of infrastructure to obtain said resources) is a bad thing.

 

[Ruptga]

Really meant it tongue-in-cheek; however, there's some merit to it. Population growth out of proportion to resource availability (or at least lack of infrastructure to obtain said resources) is a bad thing.

That doesn't have anything to do with antibiotic resistance though. Nature doesn't care, it's not like it's planning this as a response to the spread of human civilization. And us allowing diseases to be reintroduced as a means of population control is just an awful idea. It didn't even make a good plot in Star Trek.

 

[Brainonska511]

Really meant it tongue-in-cheek; however, there's some merit to it. Population growth out of proportion to resource availability (or at least lack of infrastructure to obtain said resources) is a bad thing.

It is on the rise, but the latest estimates I've seen are between 9 and 13 billion by 2100. That doesn't seem that out of control, and there could be non-death ways to slow that growth. Perhaps in terms of existing infrastructure in places likely to see the largest growth, that's an issue, but it doesn't seem to be an insurmountable challenge given the level of today's technology and resources.

http://news.sciencemag.org/economics/2014/09/experts-be-damned-world-population-will-continue-rise

And I understand that it is tongue-in-cheek, but it just seems that people are a little bit cavalier in how they throw that kind of sentiment around.

 

[TheVrolok]

Perhaps in terms of existing infrastructure in places likely to see the largest growth, that's an issue, but it doesn't seem to be an insurmountable challenge given the level of today's technology and resources.

It really shouldn't be hard to do at all, in theory, but unfortunately that would require an element of altruism that I'm not sure is available on the scale necessary (much to our dismay). Here's to hoping for change.

 

[brainhulk]

someday we will engineer and mass produce monoclonal antibodies against any antigen that escapes development of a foreign anti-globulin immune response by the human host

bye bye infection and cancer

 

[Markbnj]

Gotta fight genes with genes.

 

[z1ggy]

Another story the media can jump all over and stick a "BREAKING NEWS!!!!" banner under. Oh wait, that's all of them.

Wait, what??? You didn't die from the mega scary omgomgomg it's gunna kill you ebola strain from earlier this year...!!!!?

 

[spacejamz]

Wait, what??? You didn't die from the mega scary omgomgomg it's gunna kill you ebola strain from earlier this year...!!!!?

or bird flu? swine flu? mad cow?

 

[spacejamz]

or bird flu? swine flu? mad cow?

looks like we are due for some kinda of fish flu...

 

[Matthiasa]

In this case those medications are a last resort not because of effectiveness but because they had an unacceptably high chance of killing you. This simply left them to go unused, which meant there was less chance of resistance to it over time while others that were more used had resistances increased do to increased usage.

Pick an antibiotic and have have it go unused for a few decades and the same will happen to it.