SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
The BBC reports that the world is on the cusp of a 'post-antibiotic era'. A new mutation of bacteria in China has something "dubbed the MCR-1 gene", that prevented colistin - the antibiotic of last resort - from killing bacteria.
Chinese scientists identified a new mutation, dubbed the MCR-1 gene, that prevented colistin from killing bacteria.
The report in the Lancet Infectious Diseases showed resistance in a fifth of animals tested, 15% of raw meat samples and in 16 patients.
[...] Resistance to colistin has emerged before. However, the crucial difference this time is the mutation has arisen in a way that is very easily shared between bacteria.
There's plenty to blame - pumping livestock full of them for "preventative measures", doctors prescribing them for colds and flus, and people not finishing a course when they are prescribed them - but the future currently looks bleak.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 20 2015, @08:48AM
I didn't moderate the GP, but I do agree with the moderation. I don't need to see posts that refers to people as 'fuckers' and that tells them to die.
That still doesn't make the post a troll. Not only is he on-topic, he is correct. He didn't tell them to die, he only predicted they would because of their behaviour. Quite frankly, the people he refers to deserve to be called fuckers, because it is largely their selfish, fear-based behaviour and irrational decision making which has landed the world in this mess.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 20 2015, @10:18AM
I don't understand. How is living in-doors and cleaning yourself like crazy in any way related to antibiotic abuse?
As far as I can tell, such a lifestyle (while most likely very bad for the person themselves) would not lead to bacteria developing antibiotic resistance. Am I wrong?
Or maybe there's an underlying assumption that these people will also eat antibiotics with their every meal "just to be safe"? (in which case yes, they are idiots and they are making the world harder to live in for everyone).
(Score: 3, Insightful) by shrewdsheep on Friday November 20 2015, @10:50AM
I tend to disagree. Not only is his opinion incorrect, it is needlessly inflammatory, qualifying it as a troll.
Historically, hygiene has won the war over microbes. If we create an environment where sick people are immediately isolated, highly virulent microbes do not stand a chance. See how the last Ebola endemia panned out (and how it was prevented from spreading elsewhere).
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 20 2015, @03:22PM
ebola
I live in Africa, you guys don't know shit about Ebola. It happens here every few years. It never goes anywhere. That is the pattern of the disease. When there isn't a drug company trying to scare up customers for a vaccine, you guys don't even hear about it.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 20 2015, @03:32PM
Historically, hygiene has won the war over microbes.
There is a difference between hygiene and washing your whole body with anti-septic soap. You know how most of these soaps advertise, "kills 99% of bacteria."? Well what they're not telling you is that 99% of that 99% is actually beneficial or harmless bacteria. You know what is left in that 1% that it doesn't kill? The worst of the worst. And now that worst of the worst is free to colonise all that skin surface that would have previously been occupied by good or harmless bacteria. Using anti-bacterial soap, unless it is for a short duration, for a specific condition is fucking retarded and it does breed super bugs.
Once that stupid mother fucker catches himself a nasty skin infection because he essentially killed off his body's natural defence against the bad bugs, what do you think he is going to do? Yeah he's going to take anti-biotics for it. BAM! anti-biotic resistant super bug because some stupid shit conflates hygiene with bacterial genocide.
Just look at what happened to Henry VIIIs son. Any zero tolerance attitude towards hygiene and bacteria is just looking for trouble. Our immune system is not just T cells, it is also made up of a large host of beneficial and harmless bacteria.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 23 2015, @04:11PM
What did happen to Henry VIII's son?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 20 2015, @11:24PM
The last sentence implies that he would welcome their early deaths. It seems to me that he was trying to get a rise out of someone.