By It isn’t just Europe that could be losing the war.
Antibiotic-resistant infections have reached unprecedented levels and now outstrip our ability to fight them with existing drugs, European health experts are warning.
Each year in the EU over 25,000 people die of bacterial infections that are able to outsmart even the newest antibiotics.
The World Health Organization says the situation has reached a critical point.
A united push to make new drugs is urgently needed, it says.
Without a concerted effort, people could be dealing with the “nightmare scenario” of a worldwide spread of untreatable infections, says the WHO.
One example is the New Delhi or NDM-1 superbug recently found in UK patients.
They brought the infection back with them from countries like India and Pakistan, which they had visited for medical treatment and cosmetic surgery.
These superbugs are resistant to carbapenem antibiotics, which is concerning for experts because they are some of our most powerful weapons and are used for hard-to-treat infections that evade other drugs.- BBC
Mankind could very well be looking at a nightmare scenario in another generation or two. The chances of new stronger antibiotics being very small while the rate of superinfections will continue to increase. The overuse of antibiotics could doom mankind and I honestly believe what I just said.
10:04 am on April 7th, 2011 1
Yeah, I heard a BBC story on superbugs on NPR about a year ago. In India you can make "deals" with the chemist/pharmacist so that you can buy anti-biotics like over the counter drugs – so people don't take all the anti-biotics and these superbugs develop out of that region.
10:21 am on April 7th, 2011 2
"The overuse of antibiotics could doom mankind and I honestly believe what I just said."
No necessarily. Bacterial mutation makes it possible that resistance to an antibiotic can be lost just as rapidly as it was gained.
10:42 am on April 7th, 2011 3
Revelation 6:8 "I looked, and there before me was a pale horse! Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth."
Yep. It's in there… More than two Billion are about to be served…
11:09 am on April 7th, 2011 4
Smokey…good point.
I may be wrong, but I thought I read not too long ago that the problem is that companies are not developing new antibiotics, so the old ones, are in a sense, wearing out. The manufacturers lack the incentives and are under other pressures. Something like that. Yeah, I'm ignorant.
11:14 am on April 7th, 2011 5
Cool!
Superbugs: What can't they do!
Reduce oil importations
Stop global warming (save polar bears, etc.)
Fix Social Security
Control overpopulation in China and India
Help heal the environment
Lower the burden on the health care system (long term)
etc.,etc.,etc.
The world NEEDS some superbugs…
…well, as long as they know their place and stays in the populations of the old, sick, and poor… and in some of those dirty countries that already have too many people.
11:28 am on April 7th, 2011 6
#5,
You forgot: Teach you that not all sarcasm is funny.
12:25 pm on April 7th, 2011 7
"You forgot: Teach you that not all sarcasm is funny."
No, Smokey, it's not…
…but who says I am being sarcastic?
While the world can support more people, fewer people could live more comfortably with greater resources, less effect on the environment, less war, etc.
In fact, there are so many long-term benefits to populations and governments of developed nations, it is quite surprising that something contagious hasn't come along (accidentally on purpose) that just happened to have a statistically fatal bias toward the old, sick, and poor.
12:31 pm on April 7th, 2011 8
That's what you get for allowing people in from countries like India and Pakistan where they bathe in, and drink from, sewage spilled rivers that have thousands of dead bodies floating around. Sanitation in those countries are non-existent and inevitably they suffer from strange terrible diseases which they spread to other parts of the globe.
Then there are the Chinese, now these people move like rats and they breed like cock roaches. They're also the carriers and inventors of such new diseases like SARS and HN1, and they're stripping earth's natural resources clean. Without the Indians and Chinese, the world will be a far better place to live.
12:32 pm on April 7th, 2011 9
That's what you get for allowing people in from countries like India and Pakistan where they bathe in, and drink from, sewage spilled rivers that have thousands of dead bodies floating around. Sanitation in those countries are non-existent and inevitably they suffer from strange terrible diseases which they spread to other parts of the globe.
Then there are the Chinese, now these people move like rats and they breed like roaches. They're also the carriers and inventors of such new diseases like SARS and HN1, and they're stripping earth's natural resources clean. Without the Indians and Chinese, the world will be a far better place to live.
4:24 pm on April 7th, 2011 10
"In fact, there are so many long-term benefits to populations and governments of developed nations, it is quite surprising that something contagious hasn’t come along (accidentally on purpose) that just happened to have a statistically fatal bias toward the old, sick, and poor."
Quite an ominous statement. I wish you weren't such an eloquent writer; it would allow me some reassurance, the ability to discredit you as being just another crackpot.
4:24 pm on April 7th, 2011 11
…On the other hand, Tom is a crackpot.
5:45 pm on April 7th, 2011 12
Smokey,
The border between idealism and cynicism is defined by a line of experience.
- Me, 2011
A crackpot says it will happen. A realist says it can happen. Sometimes, they are both right.
- Me, 2011
Governments, including the American government, have a history of shady little disease-related projects.
Some of them have been rather terrible… but done with the excuse that they were for a greater good… and, maybe, some of them were… or at least started out to be.
There are likely others that will never come into the public eye for a long, long time.
While it is certainly against a lot of international agreements, I always thought the best way to "win" in Iraq (or wherever) is to spread a lethal-but-not-too-lethal disease far and wide.
American soldiers, with superior sanitation habits and medical care, can endure it while insurgents will find themselves in less of a condition to fight.
Civilians… well… that's their problem… although connected aid agencies can rake in the donations and make sure at least 10% trickles down to the needy.
As a bonus, blame Al-Qaeda for conducting biological warfare and "find" one of their mobile biolabs… with a warning that others likely exist.
And, as a double bonus, sell a nice cup of fear back home that background chatter is indicting an Al-Qaeda biological attack and only some new warrantless wiretapping and search laws will stop it… along with some emergency funds to Homeland Security to buy biological attack sensor systems from a big campaign donor's company whose factory is located in Senator Screwem's state and in Congressman Shyster's district.
And, if some of that makes its way back to America and winds up spreading like wildfire in a densely populated ghetto where medical care is lacking and people's habits are not the cleanest… well… that just proves Homeland Security was underfunded and underpowered… and the lawmakers who objected to spending or complained about infringed right are not true patriots… or might even be guilty of treason… and then it will be time to dust off those pre-written Draconian laws and ram them through congress.
And all that freed-up welfare money can fund the new federal mandates.
Then, when the old and the sick start dying off in bell curve shaped numbers, Social Security will be fixed. Those with compromised immune systems will also go pretty quickly which will go a long way to solving that AIDS problem.
Cultures that tend to have many people living in a single residence? Poor Asians and Hispanics are another great demographic to target…
…which will free up a lot of resources we need from Central and South America when they go flooding back across to border…
…and then, when it works its way to Asia, China and India will become less of an economic threat… as will Korea, Japan, and Taiwan.
Even Europe will suffer more than sparsely-populated America.
This will also fix America's financial problems and return America to a generation or more of unquestioned global dominance.
If you are a member of America's shadow leadership, which, tinfoil hats aside, likely exists in some form, what's there not to like about that? Especially when forewarning will allow you to position yourself to acquire massive assets and resources to use in the New World.
It's going to kill Korea's side dish culture, though.