World on cusp of 'post-antibiotic era'

[Peter1469]

I just saw an interesting ad on TV by a chicken provider that is adding oregano to their drinking water and thyme to their feed so as to avoid using antibiotics. Frankly, my first thought was that they were pre-seasoning the chicken (lol), however, I do know that there are many natural antibiotics in the plant world and I would certainly be inclined to buy meat that is not filled with pharmaceutical antibiotics.

Free range / organic chickens are antibiotic free (assuming the farmer is following the regulations).

[Peter1469]

And then meat will be a treat reserved only for the rich.

Not so.

[waltky]

We got some o' dem free range chickens...

... like in dat commercial on TV...

... roamin' `round the trailer park.

[AeonPax]

Not so.

`
True enough. Up around where I live, you can find smaller farms raising hog/pigs, turkey, chicken and beef cattle. You buy the meat by the whole, half or quarter and at least with these farmers, they process, custom butcher and wrap meat for long term storage such as freezing. The prices are actually a lot lower per pound than a supermarket.

[Peter1469]

The prices at the farmers market near me is somewhat high, but there is another one outside the beltway that is basically priced like the super market. And that one is open year around.

`
True enough. Up around where I live, you can find smaller farms raising hog/pigs, turkey, chicken and beef cattle. You buy the meat by the whole, half or quarter and at least with these farmers, they process, custom butcher and wrap meat for long term storage such as freezing. The prices are actually a lot lower per pound than a supermarket.

[waltky]

New antibiotic for superbugs about to come on market...

Tetraphase antibiotic may reach up to $700 million in annual sales: CEO
February 8, 2017 - Tetraphase Pharmaceuticals Inc Chief Executive Guy Macdonald said annual sales of the company's lead experimental antibiotic for serious bacterial infections could climb as high as $700 million if approved.

The antibiotic, eravacycline, is being studied in a pivotal 450-patient Phase III trial for intra-abdominal infections. Tetraphase expects to have the data in the fourth quarter after which it will apply for U.S. approval that could come in 2018. "The FDA has been very supportive of getting new antibiotics approved, so clearly we have a fast-track agreement with them once we get the positive data," Macdonald told Reuters. He said he believes eravacycline could garner annual sales that would take it at least halfway to blockbuster status. "If you have a successful gram negative drug like eravacycline, you're looking at somewhere in the $500-to-$700-million range. I think that's certainly reachable," Macdonald said.

Eravacycline is a synthetic tetracycline derivative for drug-resistant bacterial infections administered intravenously in hospital. The company is also enrolling for a 1,000-patient eravacycline trial in complicated urinary tract infections. Tetraphase is developing the drug with the help of a $80 million grant from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It currently has enough funding to take it through the second half of 2018, the CEO said.

Antibiotic resistance and the emergence of so-called super bugs, caused by widespread antibiotic overuse and the ability of bacteria to evolve, is seen as a global health threat. The U.S. government has been very helpful in funding for new antibiotics, Macdonald said. In September, Medicines Co and Roche received significant funding from BARDA to help develop antibiotics. Many major drugmakers abandoned antibiotic development because they are not nearly as profitable as other medicines, such as cancer drugs, and marketing them aggressively would likely only exacerbate the overuse problem.

Tetraphase expects to also apply for European approval late this year, and hopes to find a partner to sell the drug outside the United States. "We can do it in the U.S. on our own," Macdonald said. "For us to be able to provide the growth we need and keep our investor base happy, that's a much better business model to do it ourselves," he added. "If you want to commercialize it worldwide, we're not capable of doing that." The 75-employee company with a market value under $200 million will build a small sales force for eravacycline, Macdonald said. Tetraphase already has someone with commercial experience from Merck & Co and Cubist to oversee the eravacycline launch, once approved. "We just need the data," Macdonald said.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/tetraphas...ce.html?ref=gs

[waltky]

Doctors Concerned about Potential Post-antibiotic Era...

Doctors Alarmed by Post-antibiotic Future
March 04, 2017 | WASHINGTON — Unless new antibiotics are developed quickly, people will once again die from common infections. The World Health Organization has issued an urgent call for scientists to develop these new drugs, and for governments to fund the research.

Dr. Trish Perl, chief of infectious diseases at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, said if there are no effective antibiotics, it will affect the entire practice of medicine. “You all of a sudden understand what it was like to practice medicine maybe 50, 70, 80 years ago, when there weren't antibiotics,” Perl said. Without antibiotics, surgery will become much more dangerous. Doctors will be unable to treat diseases caused by E. coli, a bacterium that causes urinary tract infections and diarrhea. Even a virus such as the flu, which can lead to bacterial pneumonia, will mean these viruses will ultimately claim even more lives.

New antibiotics needed

New antibiotics are urgently needed against bacteria that pose the greatest threat to human health. Those most at risk: residents of nursing homes, hospital patients, and children. Children may have weaker immune systems than adults, and they receive smaller doses of antibiotics than adults do. “For the longest time we've had a number of different antibiotics in the pipeline at any given time, so whenever we ran out of the ability to use one, we would move to the next one," Dr. Michael Bell, an expert in drug-resistant pathogens at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told VOA. But that's no longer possible. Joe Larsen, the director of biological, chemical and radiological and nuclear countermeasures at the Department of Health and Human Services, said his department drew up a list of pathogens several years ago that were becoming resistant to antibiotics.

Funding needs to change

“There are antibiotics in the pipeline, but the numbers are insufficient ... to deal with the increasing rates of antibiotic-resistant bacteria,” he said. Larsen's department invests in pharmaceutical and bio-tech firms to make drugs, vaccines and diagnostics for public health emergency preparedness. Larsen is hopeful that a new antibiotic will be approved by the Food and Drug Administration later this year. He also said two to three more antibiotics are being developed that should be available in a year or two. The WHO said it's too expensive for pharmaceutical companies to develop new antibiotics on their own because they wouldn't recoup their investment. Larsen agrees that the way antibiotics are commercialized needs to change.

Bacteria are constantly changing

One reason is that the more an antibiotic is used, the less effective it becomes. That's because bacteria are constantly changing and finding new ways to resist the drugs that kill them. Once they find a way, they can pass on the gene so other bacteria can become drug-resistant as well. To preserve the effectiveness of an antibiotic, Larsen said the profits from selling these drugs can't be linked to the volume of sales the way the market normally works. He said the solution lies in public-private partnerships between governments and pharmaceutical or biotech firms. In the meantime, antibiotic resistance is very real. Lauri Hicks, who leads research on antibiotic use and resistance trends at the CDC, said, “We are seeing greater than 2 million episodes of antibiotic resistant infections each year in the U.S. alone. Twenty-three thousand of these episodes result in death.”

Don’t overuse antibiotics

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has asked hospitals and doctors to be careful not to overuse antibiotics. But beyond overuse, Bell, of the CDC, said there are other reasons these drugs are being rendered powerless. “Antibiotic resistance is being generated by not only using too many antibiotics, but also by spread of infection by lack of hygiene, from unintended contact with soiled surfaces, so the infection-control side is equally important,” he said. Patients can also help. On its website, the CDC says to take antibiotics as prescribed and finish the prescription, even if you feel better. Still, urgent action on a global level is needed to prevent the catastrophe that a post-antibiotic era would cause.

http://www.voanews.com/a/doctors-ala...e/3749034.html

[Common]

I was in the hospital in February for 8 days, they had to blast me with several different antibiotics intravenously. I had cellulitis that went into my blood stream. I had my first bout with cellulitis in Oct same thing blasted me with antibiotics.

A friend is in the hospital now, for a cyst that got infected badly. They found he contracted mrsa the quarantined him and they had a helluva time killing it in his blood stream. The doctors were becoming worried it was taking to long and they had hit him with all they had. Hes ok finally

[waltky]

Growing resistance to antibiotics gets attention of G20 Health Ministers...

G20 Health Ministers Take on Antibiotic Resistance
May 20, 2017 — Health ministers of the G20 leading economies, meeting for the first time Saturday, agreed to work together to tackle issues such as a growing resistance to antibiotics and to start implementing national action plans by the end of 2018.

Germany, which holds the G20 presidency this year, said it was an “important breakthrough” that all nations had agreed to address the problem and work toward obligatory prescriptions for antibiotics.


Pandemics


Saying that globalization caused infectious diseases to spread more quickly than previously, the 20 nations also pledged to strengthen health systems and improve their ability to react to pandemics and other health risks. “By putting global health on the agenda of the G20 we affirm our role in strengthening the political support for existing initiatives and working to address the economic aspects of global health issues,” the communique said. The results of the meeting will feed into a G20 leaders’ summit in Hamburg in July.

A microbiologist works with tubes of bacteria samples at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta

Overprescription


While the discovery of antibiotics has provided cures for many bacterial infections that had previously been lethal, overprescription has led to the evolution of resistance strains of many bacteria. An EU report last year found that newly resistant strains of bacteria were responsible for more than 25,000 deaths a year in the 28-member bloc alone. Germany has argued that even having a discussion about it will help raise public awareness about the problem. The G20 also said they agreed to help improve access to affordable medicine in poorer countries.


http://www.voanews.com/a/g20-health-...e/3863810.html

[Peter1469]

Factory farms are a big source of the problem.