Drug Resistance

[BobbyBobBob]

Is there any positive news on drug resistance yet? Are there programmes in place looking at trying to get new drugs or is it just bring dismissed still?

[Zacs-Master]

Do you mean antibiotics? Drug resistance to what, or by whom?

[sunny-dave]

Many years have been wasted, by a combination of head-in-the-sand, arty-farty types in Government (who don't 'do' science) and money-grabbing drug companies (who can't see a profit in new antibiotic and antiviral agents).

Things are moving now - is it too late? Probably - but at least they are trying :

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25599-superbug-crisis-global-push-to-save-antibiotics-begins.html?full=true#.VI1UVKZWE2U

[atalanta]

If you expect drug companies to produce new drugs without making a profit, no wonder they haven't found a new category of antibiotics. As it happens, they certainly are working on this problem. Just because they haven't yet announced the solution doesn't mean they are neglecting the problem. They must make a profit, since there is no point a commercial company bankrupting itself working on drugs which produce no useful returns. At the very least, they need profits on today's drugs in order to pay for the research on tomorrow's drugs.
And no, I am not a shareholder.

[solvitquick]

Well said atalanta,
The major drugs companies in the world are working hard on both antibiotics and immunity treatments.
However they are not receiving enough encouragement from governments or the UN. By that I mean prolonging patent-life of new drugs, shortening the time for clinical-trials to allow new drugs onto the market and recognising that certain major Companies have offered to suspend competition in order to combine resources to help combat e.g. MRSA. I don't know the price needed for such a commercially unique offer or if it took place.
So Bobby, there is no positive news on drug-resistance. This is thanks to patients not completing their course, over-prescribing, privatising hospital cleansing and the speed which bacteria and viruses can mutate.
We are down to our LAST antibiotic which has yet to reveal drug-resistance but that is thanks to its restricted use in case of a pandemic.
In the meantime the media concentrate on relative trivia like "anti-ageing" creams, infertiilty (not an illness or disease) and even nonsensical healthy eating theories.
But by sticking our head in the media sand mankind might pay a terrible price of a pandemic worse than the "black-death" as we now have such easy international travel - as do the bugs.
I have no contact, shares or any particular axe to grind on behalf of any drugs company.
Good question BobbyBobBob - about time it was addresssed.
SIQ.

[Old_Geezer]

There is the problem with leaving merchants the task of supplying the needs of the human race. Not being charities, if there is no obvious profit they'll go find something that has to invest in. These vital needs should be funded by governments from public funds to produce what the public has to have.

[beso]

A big part of the problem with antibiotic resistance is the fact that strains of many microorganisms were already resistant before antibiotics were discovered.

For example, a sample of Dysentery taken from a World War One soldier was found to be resistant to Penicillin and one of its derivatives.

Other organisms such a Penicillin mould had already been fighting infections with these chemical for eons and the bacteria had developed resistance. These genes are very easily reactivated when the bacteria confront the medical versions of the antibiotics.

[solvitquick]

beso,
Very interesting.
Of course our source of Penicillin was initially from mould so some resistance may well have arisen naturally before we isolated it and were able to synthesise it.
SIQ..

[EdgeofDarkness]

Yes, there are currently advances in combating MRSA. These involve a slightly different method, in terms of chemical attack on receptor sites in order to make the bacillus more vulnerable.

But you know evolution is a war. Similar to protecting against computer viruses. As soon as you defend the current threat, the game is moving on. Resistance, as beso hints at, is really very simple. As a species we do not all have the same genes, which allows some of us to come through plague etc unscathed. Then the next generation are all plague immune, because they are derived from the genetic stock of the survivors. It is the same for bacilli.