1y ago

Scientists Discover New Antibiotic Class Effective Against Drug-Resistant Bacteria

scitechdaily.com

8 comments

A good step, but we need to do more to address overuse of antibiotics if we want to get off this treadmill, especially for cases not relevant to life-saving medical treatment.
- That's easy. Stop eating meat. The meat industry loves the stuff. It allows them to cram more animals in the same space by preventing them becoming sick and with the added bonus of gaining weight faster so faster profit.
How common is anti biotics in your countries? Needs to be described here in Sweden and only when necessary.
- Developing countries (supposedly mainly China) just keep all their livestock on them all the time.
  Which is a massive petri-dish for developing antibiotic-resistant bacteria just about as fast as you can.
This is not the solution. We need to be moving away from antibiotics, and drastically decreasing their use/overuse.
While antibiotic resistance gets all the attention, the damage being done to our host-native microbiomes is arguably as big a threat as climate change, as the damage compounds over generations, and once it's gone you can't get it back.
https://humanmicrobiome.info/antibiotics/
Quick let's feed it to cattle by the ton
Unfortunately a temporary solution. But would it be possible to design an RNA or DNA virus that recognises and targets bacteria with certain antibiotics resistance genes and then lyses them or at least represses the genes in question?
- CRISPR already exists. This can easily be used to target antibiotic resistance genes and there are many examples in literature of this. Plasmid and phage as vector. Easy stuff. However, cane toads and wabbits and intentional release of GMOs leaves something to be desired for gene technology regulators.
  Antibiotics are the way, but require targeted combination therapy, not a doctor's gut feeling.

8 comments