Well, this is just about the dumbest thing...

[Mikebits]

It's called evolution =) Genetic's don't stay the same long. Massive environmental changes and the fact that the body doesn't adapt very quickly lead to all sorts of problems.

Natural selection takes longer than a few generations.

Evolution is much slower. You kinda sound like your saying people with the genetic disorder polydactyly (Six fingers), die off because they can't buy mittens in the winter time and freeze to death, hence the end of the line.

I think it is a bit more involved.

 

[Mikebits]

It's actually partially medicines fault that people get sicker as a whole. If we didn't know how to stop people with life threatening illnesses from getting worse and prolonging their life (hence chances for breeding) those genetic lines would gradually die out. Medicine is exceedingly good at prolonging the life of sick people but incredibly slow at actually coming up with cures for the root causes of those sicknesses. However simply denying sick people treatment is the moral equivalent of genocide.

You seem to be anti medicine as many people are. I am sure when the day comes (and it most likely will), you will welcome that medicine that allows you to see one more sunrise...

 

[Sceadwian]

Mike I most definitely already welcome some medicines, my fathers been through two heart attacks, and my mother has colon cancer. Without quiet a slew of those drugs I wouldn't have had an Easter dinner to go to this weekend. But that doesn't mean the whole system works flawlessly and all medicine is good. I'm going to say rather broadly that the bulk of 'what ails us' that's been garnering more attention in the news lately is in fact brought on by the problems in out society as a hole, such as stress from increased population densities we just can't work in 'villages' as complex as cities have grown to be, our brains can't handle it. Our diets are only a shadow of what they were a few hundred years ago. We screw ourselves up horribly every day in any number of a hundred different ways, I just think addressing root causes is more important the drugs for many of the symptoms as medicine itself doesn't cure the root cause.
I guess what I'm trying to say is I'm less against medicine as opposed to being against the society that we live in that puts medicine in the position it currently is in because they can't possibly fix everything that's going wrong with us because the medicines don't deal with the root cause of the problem. In my fathers case it was heavy smoking and bad diet for years that lead to his heart attack.
Medicine itself can't cure anything it can only relieve symptoms.

Antibiotics are a good example of something extremely useful, but there are many resistant strains cropping up in hospitals from their over use, and that's only get worse. Short term perception of gain, long term loss. It's a slipper moral and philosophical slope because the weighing of good vs bad is such a difficult thing to do, and physically impossible in the long run, as we simply can't predict the upset we cause to the system as a whole until the effects are already being felt of it's collapse.

 

[Sceadwian]

Oh by the way, look at dog breeders, and plant hybridizing.
It takes only two generations of breeding to get completely and dramatically different traits from a living creature. Genetics are a lot more malleable than most people think. While it only takes two generations to cross breed specific traits it takes many many more generations to develop stable ones. It's the collapse of the unstable one's that isn't so much fun.

 

[dknguyen]

The smell of peanuts (usually peanut butter or chocolate bars containing peanuts since these have the strongest smell by far) will upset my stomach and make me feel woozy for a good while afterwards. Eating peanuts on the other hand will usually put me out for half the day. I don't consider myself as allergic as some people though so I don't care about things that "may contain peanuts", just things that do contain peanuts.

That said, I don't eat cashews either though I'm not allergic. I think peanuts are one of the most disgusting and vile things around. Think about it, if you wouldn't eat dog crap would you eat something that looks like dog crap? Probably not. Personally I don't understand the appeal of peanuts to anyone at all.

 

[Mikebits]

Mike I most definitely already welcome some medicines, my fathers been through two heart attacks, and my mother has colon cancer. Without quiet a slew of those drugs I wouldn't have had an Easter dinner to go to this weekend. But that doesn't mean the whole system works flawlessly and all medicine is good. I'm going to say rather broadly that the bulk of 'what ails us' that's been garnering more attention in the news lately is in fact brought on by the problems in out society as a hole, such as stress from increased population densities we just can't work in 'villages' as complex as cities have grown to be, our brains can't handle it. Our diets are only a shadow of what they were a few hundred years ago. We screw ourselves up horribly every day in any number of a hundred different ways, I just think addressing root causes is more important the drugs for many of the symptoms as medicine itself doesn't cure the root cause.
I guess what I'm trying to say is I'm less against medicine as opposed to being against the society that we live in that puts medicine in the position it currently is in because they can't possibly fix everything that's going wrong with us because the medicines don't deal with the root cause of the problem. In my fathers case it was heavy smoking and bad diet for years that lead to his heart attack.
Medicine itself can't cure anything it can only relieve symptoms.

Antibiotics are a good example of something extremely useful, but there are many resistant strains cropping up in hospitals from their over use, and that's only get worse. Short term perception of gain, long term loss. It's a slipper moral and philosophical slope because the weighing of good vs bad is such a difficult thing to do, and physically impossible in the long run, as we simply can't predict the upset we cause to the system as a whole until the effects are already being felt of it's collapse.

How can medicine cure a root cause when the disease is lifestyle based, such as smoking? The public is informed about smoking yet many choose to not heed the warnings.

The problem with antibiotics is this. When a person is told to take the drug for a prescribed amount of time, they usually do not. They stop taking the pill when the feel better. Now here is the problem.

When a person is infected with a bacterial strain, they are not immediately sick. It is not until the bacteria has multiplied into millions. At this time the patient feels sick and seeks medical help. Test are done and it is determined the patient has a bacterial infection, which at this time the bacteria count is in millions. AN antibiotic is prescribed and usual dosage is ten days. Most take the pill for several days until they feel better, and then stop the regiment.

Problem here; They may have killed off most of the bacteria down to thousands now, yet the thousand that remains are prone to be stronger and resist the antibiotic. If the regiment is continued, these final bacteria will eventually die.

Since the patient did not keep up with the pill, these strong bacteria now multiply and re introduce the original illness. Only difference now is that the bacteria can hold up against the antibiotic. Now a stronger one is needed. Many people have died due to this scenario.

It is important to follow the directives of Dr. and Pharma.

 

[Sceadwian]

Mike, there's a problem with that theory. The antibiotic resistance bacteria strains that are currently cropping are prevalent primarily in hospitals themselves, not in the public at large.

 

[Mikebits]

Mike, there's a problem with that theory. The antibiotic resistance bacteria strains that are currently cropping are prevalent primarily in hospitals themselves, not in the public at large.

Would you care to provide some evidence of this?

 

[Torben]

Mike, there's a problem with that theory. The antibiotic resistance bacteria strains that are currently cropping are prevalent primarily in hospitals themselves, not in the public at large.

While I otherwise agree with what you're saying, this isn't entirely true. My Mom spent a lot of years driving long miles around the north, distributing antibiotics to and attempting to educate the victims of a TB outbreak in northern Canada. Many of these people (often in remote villages and reservations, with little if any electronic communication) would simply not take their antibiotics for the full prescription and would stop taking them as soon as they felt better. Thanks to this, we have new and more powerful strains of TB to worry about.

This is not an isolated case. There are many diseases which are making a comeback in newer, more intransigent forms because people will not complete their prescriptions after the point where they "feel better".


Torben

 

[Sceadwian]

A Vicious Cycle: More Infections and Antibiotic Overuse
Though bacterial antibiotic resistance is a natural phenomenon, societal factors also contribute to the problem. These factors include increased infection transmission, coupled with inappropriate antibiotic use.
More people are contracting infections. Sinusitis among adults is on the rise, as are ear infections in children. A report by CDC's Linda F. McCaig and James M. Hughes, M.D., in the Jan. 18, 1995, Journal of the American Medical Association, tracks antibiotic use in treating common illnesses. The report cites nearly 6 million antibiotic prescriptions for sinusitis in 1985, and nearly 13 million in 1992. Similarly, for middle ear infections, the numbers are 15 million prescriptions in 1985, and 23.6 million in 1992.
Causes for the increase in reported infections are diverse. Some studies correlate the doubling in doctor's office visits for ear infections for preschoolers between 1975 and 1990 to increased use of day-care facilities. Homelessness contributes to the spread of infection. Ironically, advances in modern medicine have made more people predisposed to infection. People on chemotherapy and transplant recipients taking drugs to suppress their immune function are at greater risk of infection.
"There are the number of immunocompromised patients, who wouldn't have survived in earlier times," says Cranston. "Radical procedures produce patients who are in difficult shape in the hospital, and are prone to nosocomial [hospital-acquired] infections. Also, the general aging of patients who live longer, get sicker, and die slower contributes to the problem," he adds.
Though some people clearly need to be treated with antibiotics, many experts are concerned about the inappropriate use of these powerful drugs. "Many consumers have an expectation that when they're ill, antibiotics are the answer. They put pressure on the physician to prescribe them. Most of the time the illness is viral, and antibiotics are not the answer. This large burden of antibiotics is certainly selecting resistant bacteria," says Blum.
Another much-publicized concern is use of antibiotics in livestock, where the drugs are used in well animals to prevent disease, and the animals are later slaughtered for food. "If an animal gets a bacterial infection, growth is slowed and it doesn't put on weight as fast," says Joe Madden, Ph.D., strategic manager of microbiology at FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. In addition, antibiotics are sometimes administered at low levels in feed for long durations to increase the rate of weight gain and improve the efficiency of converting animal feed to units of animal production.
FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine limits the amount of antibiotic residue in poultry and other meats, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture monitors meats for drug residues. According to Margaret Miller, Ph.D., deputy division director at the Center for Veterinary Medicine, the residue limits for antimicrobial animal drugs are set low enough to ensure that the residues themselves do not select resistant bacteria in (human) gut flora.
FDA is investigating whether bacteria resistant to quinolone antibiotics can emerge in food animals and cause disease in humans. Although thorough cooking sharply reduces the likelihood of antibiotic-resistant bacteria surviving in a meat meal to infect a human, it could happen. Pathogens resistant to drugs other than fluoroquinolones have sporadically been reported to survive in a meat meal to infect a human. In 1983, for example, 18 people in four midwestern states developed multi-drug-resistant Salmonella food poisoning after eating beef from cows fed antibiotics. Eleven of the people were hospitalized, and one died.
A study conducted by Alain Cometta, M.D., and his colleagues at the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois in Lausanne, Switzerland, and reported in the April 28, 1994, New England Journal of Medicine, showed that increase in antibiotic resistance parallels increase in antibiotic use in humans. They examined a large group of cancer patients given antibiotics called fluoroquinolones to prevent infection. The patients' white blood cell counts were very low as a result of their cancer treatment, leaving them open to infection.
Between 1983 and 1993, the percentage of such patients receiving antibiotics rose from 1.4 to 45. During those years, the researchers isolated Escherichia coli bacteria annually from the patients, and tested the microbes for resistance to five types of fluoroquinolones. Between 1983 and 1990, all 92 E. coli strains tested were easily killed by the antibiotics. But from 1991 to 1993, 11 of 40 tested strains (28 percent) were resistant to all five drugs.

**broken link removed**

 

[Sceadwian]

Controlling Antibiotics And Antibiotic Resistance In Hospitals

 

[Sceadwian]

The scourge of antibiotic-resistant bacteria | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

 

[Sceadwian]

**broken link removed**

Sorry for the one liners in the posts, I posted them as I found them, I stopped when I thought I might have made a point. There is NO shortage of more articles and studies but I have no intention of looking for more.

 

[Torben]

**broken link removed**

That certainly doesn't support the hypothesis that resistant strains of bacteria are mostly limited to hospitals.


Torben

 

[Sceadwian]

Mispoken on my part. I meant more spreads and develop prevalently with hospitals being hubs. Lots of sick people in one spot, lots of antibiotic use weakened immune systems and generally susceptible people.
One of the paragraphs in that first one that struck me most was.

Between 1983 and 1993, the percentage of such patients receiving antibiotics rose from 1.4 to 45. During those years, the researchers isolated Escherichia coli bacteria annually from the patients, and tested the microbes for resistance to five types of fluoroquinolones. Between 1983 and 1990, all 92 E. coli strains tested were easily killed by the antibiotics. But from 1991 to 1993, 11 of 40 tested strains (28 percent) were resistant to all five drugs.

Also

In the Texas study, 407 patients from 1980 to 1986 were allowed to take their medication on their own. From 1986 until the end of 1992, 581 patients were closely followed, with nurses observing them take their pills. By the end of the study, the relapse rate--which reflects antibiotic resistance--fell from 20.9 to 5.5 percent. This trend is especially significant, the researchers note, because it occurred as risk factors for spreading TB--including AIDS, intravenous drug use, and homelessness--were increasing. The conclusion: Resistance can be slowed if patients take medications correctly.

Which I found interesting because although the occurrence of relapse was lower if they took their medications under supervision it was not 0. So at BEST following the doctors guidelines slows the progression of their development, but the is not as statistically relevant as the increase in the number of people taking anti-biotics overall.

Just better hope medicine can create new antibiotics faster than mother nature can adapt. Also once (and they will eventually) these bugs spread to undeveloped countries that don't have access to the latest antibiotics it will just get worse.

 

[killivolt]

With the way population growth is going I doubt it's gonna be that nice =) It's only a matter of time before mother nature makes some drastic corrections. I don't mean to sound too much like a pessimist, but it's just a matter of time, this generation, next, 10 or more who knows, however at some point there is going to be a natural 'correction' and the human race isn't gonna much like it.

Yeah, it's called AIG and not only is the wallet thinner so will our waist line.


kv

 

[Mikebits]

Mike, there's a problem with that theory. The antibiotic resistance bacteria strains that are currently cropping are prevalent primarily in hospitals themselves, not in the public at large.

This somewhat implies that hospitals are the creators of the mutli drug resistant strains. I argue that this is not the case.

I do agree that hospitals are likely a spawning ground to spread a MDRS, and this only makes sense as sick people visit the hospital. Screening for such a thing is out of the question, keeping conditions free of all bacteria is next to impossible. With so many surgical procedures taking place in hospitals, and people with weakened immune systems, this sort of thing is very problematic to avoid.

According to the articles you provided, it does seem there is a better awareness of this condition and the medical and Pharma industry is back in the game. Problem here is that it takes years to get these new meds through the FDA.

But I think I see your point.

 

[HiTech]

Many physicians in general are becoming more cautious when prescribing anitbiotics even outside the clinical setting. The problem is not limited to just hospitals and clinics anymore. The flip side to that coin is a good many pharmacies are offering certain antibiotic prescriptions at a low $4 per bottle!! This has patients pressuring their doctors for a "script" as the drug companies continue to push their wares. Some doctors do not want to disappoint and lose their patient(s).

 

[Mike_2545]

I have seen genetic drift of insect populations in greenhouse environments. Insecticide resistant offspring of the ones you didn't kill the first time. I have seen kill ratios go from 95% to 5% in a matter of weeks with Whitefly.

 

[shub]

The casing a raw cashew comes form it poisonous. Roasting detoxifies them. Peanuts aren't so picky.