Antibiotic resistance a " catastrophic threat."

[rivll]

http://news.yahoo.com/antibiotic-resistance-catastrophic-threat-medical-chief-000913224.html

LONDON (Reuters) - Antibiotic resistance poses a catastrophic threat to medicine and could mean patients having minor surgery risk dying from infections that can no longer be treated, Britain's top health official said on Monday.

Sally Davies, the chief medical officer for England, said global action is needed to fight antibiotic, or antimicrobial, resistance and fill a drug "discovery void" by researching and developing new medicines to treat emerging, mutating infections.
Only a handful of new antibiotics have been developed and brought to market in the past few decades, and it is a race against time to find more, as bacterial infections increasingly evolve into "superbugs" resistant to existing drugs.
"Antimicrobial resistance poses a catastrophic threat. If we don't act now, any one of us could go into hospital in 20 years for minor surgery and die because of an ordinary infection that can't be treated by antibiotics," Davies told reporters as she published a report on infectious disease.

[ILADVOCATE]

  Concern appears to have some follow up by the FDA:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/12/us/antibiotics-for-livestock-will-require-prescription-fda-says.html?_r=0

[Vance2335]

Meat has antibiotics for the cow but normally has steriods to beef (pun intended) up the cow for more meat for the $.

[ILADVOCATE]

  The overuse of antibiotics in farm animals for other than to prevent infections is a factor as well. Also adding anti bacterial agents to common products such as soap.

[Dee1956]

This is scary, I thought that as long as  you didn't take a lot of antibiotics you would be ok, I see where I got with thinking.
I had read that all of our meat is full of antibiotics, that could affect us as well.
This doesn't bode well for any of us.

[rivll]

Microbes can develop resistance to specific medicines. A common misconception is that a person's body becomes resistant to specific drugs. However, it is microbes, not people that become resistant to the drugs.

http://health.mo.gov/safety/antibioticresistance/faq.php

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Well that just *****.

[rivll]

Thanks Teko.

[teko]

http://health.mo.gov/safety/antibioticresistance/faq.php

The bacteria is growing resistant to antibiotics, caused by overuse. So now the antibiotics that we do have are less effective for all of us, not just those who overdo their usage, at least, that is my understanding. Above is a link that describes how that happens. :)

[rivll]

What I would like to know is if the people who have not taken many antibiotics in their lifetimes are as at risk as those who have built a resistance to them.
Is this mutant bacteria dangerous because the antibiotics don't work for a person who has a resistance or because it is so powerful that even if an antibiotic works well for you, the bacterial strain is so powerful, it will override any known antibiotic?
Does this question make sense? I don't have a strong medical background so I am sort of groping around in the dark here trying to form this question.

[brice1967]

The few doctors I know around here won't prescribe an antibiotic unless it is absolutely necessary.  One of the "clinics" around here is notorious for handing out antibiotics and pain medicine like Halloween candy.  Pitiful....

[teko]

This is bat **** scary to me. I have a client who had foot surgery over 4 months ago. She has been running a fever this whole time. She has also been having problems with her insurer because they changed to a ppo from what they had been so there is a lot of confusion in the doctors office right now as to what is covered by who, when and where. In the interim she continued to see the surgeon. Immediately following the surgery, the incision site busted open leaving a gaping wound way down into the foot. She has been on antibiotics this whole time but the fever persisted. After being sent to a wound clinic, they finally ran an mri which revealed infection in the bone. Last week she went to the hospital to have a port put in so they could give her the heavy duty stuff. She has not been on that foot all this time.

Then we know another guy who had a hip transplant who got an infection as well. They had to remove the hip and he is still on antibiotics and not doing well at all.

People need to back off the antibiotic use in this country. Doctors seem to prescribe them for every little thing. When they are not prescibing them on their own, the parents are calling and trying to get them for their little ones. Now here we are! We have had many many warnings of what would happen if we continued down that road. Scary stuff!

[brice1967]

Quite a few years back, we had a plumber here lose his life due to a strain of a staph infection that nobody had seen.  Got it by accidentally poking his hand with a putty knife that he used to remove a wax toilet gasket.

[rivll]

This is what happens when you over prescribe medication for something that a person might not even have.
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Very true. I remember my kids would have a slight fever and the sniffles and the Dr. would write a prescription for an antibiotic. I never used them, just made them tea with honey and lemon.
Antibiotics definitely have their place but it used to be they were handed out like candy. I think the medical establishment finally got wise a few years ago.

[Vance2335]

Potentially this could be a scary situation.

There is a "super bug" from the middle east that has worked it's way up to the UK. Luckly it has only infected a few in the UK.

This is what happens when you over prescribe medication for something that a person might not even have. The body develops a tolorance to it, so when needed the body's natural reaction to the infection is not the same and the infection has the ability to adapt and mutate which is then passed on to someone else. (Mutations normally take a while to happen, just made a quick point about it).