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New Class of Antibiotics


pantheory

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A new type of antibiotic appears to be effective against a wide range of bacteria. Of particular interest is what is believed to be its effectiveness against bacteria mutations which are resistant to other forms of antibiotics, simply called antibiotic resistant infections.

Although the link below is a difficult read, it tells of the development of this so-called “antibiotic breakthrough.” 

Although it is not discussed in the link, I would expect it will take a minimum of a couple more years before this class of antibiotic might be available for human testing. First there must be animal trials, then human trials for those human infections where there is no other alternative antibiotic that is working. Then there will be trials to distinguish the possible side effects for a large number of people. The good part of this medication so far is that humans are generally not negatively affected by it, only bacteria. The bad aspect of it is that it is a very new "discovery," and because of its newness could in future testing turn out to be something of less importance.

But right now it seems like this new class of medication might have great potential.

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-12/twi-wrn122120.php

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Thanks for pointing to this article.  I participate in an "antibacterial stewardship" program - required at most health care facilities.  But honestly, the stewardship program doesn't have any real power to change things.  We track prescribing practices and are supposedly "empowered" to speak up when antibiotics are used inappropriately, but its very reactionary.  I've heard it said that if we don't come up with something new by 2030 we could be in a world that feels very much like pre-antibiotic days where people were dying from common infections. Ironically, it is the use of antibiotics that has led to these super-resistant bugs.  I sometimes think the of the earth as one giant organism and humans are just one particular microorganism living on it.  Perhaps when humans start wreaking havoc, mother nature says, "here hold my beer" and shows us she can fight back with pandemics, superbugs and whatever else she can cook up to limit the human population.  Anyway, I love the idea of something new that boosts (rather than suppresses) the immune system's ability to take care of the body. This is becoming more the approach in cancer therapies, vaccines, etc.   Exciting stuff!

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On 12/26/2020 at 6:29 AM, freshstart said:

Thanks for pointing to this article.  I participate in an "antibacterial stewardship" program - required at most health care facilities.  But honestly, the stewardship program doesn't have any real power to change things.  We track prescribing practices and are supposedly "empowered" to speak up when antibiotics are used inappropriately, but its very reactionary.  I've heard it said that if we don't come up with something new by 2030 we could be in a world that feels very much like pre-antibiotic days where people were dying from common infections. Ironically, it is the use of antibiotics that has led to these super-resistant bugs.  I sometimes think the of the earth as one giant organism and humans are just one particular microorganism living on it.  Perhaps when humans start wreaking havoc, mother nature says, "here hold my beer" and shows us she can fight back with pandemics, superbugs and whatever else she can cook up to limit the human population.  Anyway, I love the idea of something new that boosts (rather than suppresses) the immune system's ability to take care of the body. This is becoming more the approach in cancer therapies, vaccines, etc.   Exciting stuff!

 

Yeah, I think this medication's possibility seems very awesome. We will see in the coming months and couple of years how this plays out in the news, and otherwise.  I think partly because of all the monies spent because of the pandemic around the world that we are on the cusp of a viral revolution breakthrough in medicine, something like the invention of penicillin and the first antibiotics. 

 

There are two very big drugs in the works. The first one is a vaccine for the common cold. This research has been funded by Jeff Bezos of Amazon. The second drug is a universal flu vaccine. Presently flue vaccines are only effective against one or two viral strains and must be pre-selected every year based upon what stains are prevalent that year. Every year the vaccine is different than the year before and is only 50% effective for that reason. It can provide immunity for not much more than a year. A universal vaccine could cover most all strains of the flue and could be up to 90% effective in general. It also might provide immunity for much longer than a single year.

 

Vaccines are extremely expensive to develop. A major reason why medicines in general must be expensive to buy is because of the large amount of highly educated, qualified people that must be employed for their development, the great expense of testing these drugs, and the huge cost of governmental hoops that must be jumped through by drug companies (red tape) to get a single drug approved. Government regulations can cost a drug company billions of dollars to get just a single drug approved. Very few companies can get government or grant aid for their drug development.

 

Called "The Long Game," there are also companies and governments working on the development of a universal vaccine against Coronaviruses in general. This would include Covid 19,  the common cold, flu viruses in general, and likely against probable future corona virus pandemics around the world.  Probably many hundreds of billions of dollars will have to be spent around the world (tax dollars) for the development of such a vaccine. But it would be worth it,  because in time such a program will eventually be successful IMO.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/13/the-mutation-game-the-race-for-a-vaccine-against-all-coronaviruses

 

https://sciencenorway.no/covid19-epidemic-vaccine/norwegian-researchers-want-to-make-a-universal-vaccine-covering-all-coronaviruses/1672208

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