EnMasse

[Clog-boy]

I was quite alarmed when I just heard something about some research proving things have gotten worse than expected.
It seems more bacteria are growing resistant to our antibiotics and penicillin.

I found this site:Genome News Network, with some alarming articles...

Here are some pieces of the articles on the site mentioned above:

[Clog-boy]

This FAQ at the site of the CDC on Antibiotic Resistance might shed a bit more light on the subject...

[Tommy Shanks]

[Cartman]

We really need to educate people about when they should see a doctor. At the same time, doctors need to be more disciplined in terms of handing out prescriptions. I have had several eye infections (styes) during my life, and the doctors claim there is nothing that can be done to permanently eliminate them (genetic). When I get them, the options are to leave them and hope they go down (not an option), lance them or offer prescriptions. I would rather have them lanced, but docs always want to prescribe antibiotics because it is in the eye area and they want to cover their asses.

[deBeauxOs]

If you want to scare yourself silly, read Laurie Garrett's book, The Coming Plague .

[Mr. Anonymous]

I believe there are some potentially very promising alternatives outside of the current allopathic paradigm, however, such as these
(keep in mind that these are brief descriptions and are therefore not complete, or even completely accurate):

- Phage therapy: http://www.evergreen.edu/phage/phagetherapy/phagetherapy.htm#introd...
http://www.phagetherapy.com/ptlinks.html

- Probiotics to help one digest and assimilate food.

- Various cleanses to help one clean out ones body, leading to better digestion and elimination in the future.

- Antioxidents:
Alpha-Lipoic Acid is perhaps the best one for the dollar, about 300 times as powerfull as Vitamin C and E combined.

- Colloidal Silver, very effective in killing off unwanted stuff in the body.

- Essential Oils, some of which are very effective in killing off unwanted stuff in the body.

- "Rife" technology. See "The cancer cure that worked..." by Barry Lymes.

- some of these folks: http://www.renewedlife.com/article/?id=26

and last, but certainly not least, the idea that most diseases will only occur in an acidic (low PH) environment is potentially of great value. Insofar as this is true (and as I understand it is very true), most Cancers and other diseases can be prevented - and even cured if caught in time - simply by bringing ones PH levels to a more neutral or alkaline state. A page on alkalizing foods can be found here, http://mysite.verizon.net/felipe2/id12.html while an article on the effects of a too-acidic body can be found here: http://www.thewolfeclinic.com/phbalancearticle.html

"Natural Cures that Work" by Kevin Trudeau is also useful in this and other areas related to health.
_________________
"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen."
"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing."
- Albert Einstein

[bshmr]

Something to look forward to for potential as well as 'tease' value.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11182437

Insect brains 'are source of antibiotics' to fight MRSA
6 September 2010 Last updated at 07:08 ET

[Willow]

I don't know much about this subject, but I did hear an interesting piece on CBC radio about Superbugs. The scientists were studying how bacteria develop resistance to antibiotics. They had assumed that the bacteria would develop a resistance, then pass it on through genes so its offspring would be resistance. Turns out this is not the case. Only a very few develop a resistance - the "superbugs." These superbugs then share their resistance. Without the superbug present, the other bacteria were still very weak and could be killed with even less antibiotic than previously thought. So now its to find out how to stop the superbugs from sharing that resistance. The scientist on the show seemed quite excited about this find. Does anyone else know more about this?
_________________
There is a wisdom of the head, and....a wisdom of the heart. Charles Dickens

[Willow]

I don't know much about this subject, but I did hear an interesting piece on CBC radio about Superbugs. The scientists were studying how bacteria develop resistance to antibiotics. They had assumed that the bacteria would develop a resistance, then pass it on through genes so its offspring would be resistance. Turns out this is not the case. Only a very few develop a resistance - the "superbugs." These superbugs then share their resistance. Without the superbug present, the other bacteria were still very weak and could be killed with even less antibiotic than previously thought. So now its to find out how to stop the superbugs from sharing that resistance. The scientist on the show seemed quite excited about this find. Does anyone else know more about this?
_________________
There is a wisdom of the head, and....a wisdom of the heart. Charles Dickens

[bshmr]

[Rufus Polson]

Well, that may be exciting to the scientists, but it sounds worrisome to me. Thing is, one organism can only do so much--there's a metabolic cost for being resistant to more things.
But if there's only a few resistant bacteria in any population, there could be a scattering of a whole bunch of types of resistant bacteria, each resistant to a couple of things and capable of passing their resistance to the whole population. In this way, the population of bacteria as a whole could be resistant to a broad spectrum of stuff without taking much of a metabolic hit. Good survival strategy on their part, bad news for us.

Plus, I'm not sure it helps much. I mean, so they're thinking "If we can just knock out the few superbugs, we'll be able to readily kill all the other bacteria that don't have the superbugs' resistance on their own!" But, if they can kill the superbugs, they could presumably do it even if the population were all superbugs, so what's the difference? I suppose if they could interfere with the mechanism by which the superbugs passed on their resistance, they could kill everything else and leave the superbugs alive but too few to do damage. But if they start routinely doing that, we really *will* end up with a population of just superbugs. Newsflash to scientists: Bacteria reproduce fairly quickly.

[Willow]

They did say the bacteria were "altruistic." I think the gist of it was to find out how to stop the superbugs from sharing the resistance. And here I thought it was something positive. geez. Thanks Rufus for that positive outlook. Your probably right though.
_________________
There is a wisdom of the head, and....a wisdom of the heart. Charles Dickens

[bshmr]

Other recent PR items included a) using bacteria to attack other bacteria and b) that bacteria split into toxin-making attack and re-producing groups.

Anyways, I suppose one could still peruse the CBC program records for the name of the expert or subject matter; and then, sue that to find more info.

[Rufus Polson]

Well, if nothing else it's always cool to learn new stuff. I'm not saying they shouldn't have found this out. It strikes me as a pretty neat adaptation and yet another of those cases where it turns out bacteria are much less acting on their own and much more, basically, social than had ever been realized. It's just that their ability to co-operate effectively probably isn't great news for us.

[bshmr]

Interesting collection, now watch for unintended consequences. One would produce ammonia, which could be fertilizer or water pollution.

12 Ways Bacteria Improves Our Lives, From Hard Drives to Highrises
by Jaymi Heimbuch, San Francisco, California on 01.20.11