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Post by cjm on May 24, 2015 15:28:12 GMT
Why, one wonders, is it not profitable to develop new antibiotics?
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Post by Trog on May 25, 2015 6:19:20 GMT
Why, one wonders, is it not profitable to develop new antibiotics? 1. Because the masses want it for free, therefore 2. Governments implement measures so that they can get it for free, which mostly boils down to 3. those who developed it do not get a return on their investment. (Basically, to develop an antibiotic, or any medicine, for that matter, has become a high risk investment.)
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Post by cjm on May 25, 2015 18:29:45 GMT
Why, one wonders, is it not profitable to develop new antibiotics? 1. Because the masses want it for free, therefore 2. Governments implement measures so that they can get it for free, which mostly boils down to 3. those who developed it do not get a return on their investment. (Basically, to develop an antibiotic, or any medicine, for that matter, has become a high risk investment.) In SA UCT is working on a concept to undo patent laws. Maximum protection is 20 years anyway - which is much too short.
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Post by cjm on May 22, 2016 16:45:16 GMT
Many clever ideas to minimise the need for antibiotics. What is interesting though is the interventionist attempt to fund research. The market could have taken care of this without the waste always accompanying (socialist) interventionism - setting up structures, paying salaries, combating fraud and theft of the funds involved (frictional costs, I call it). The market could have taken care of it under improved protection of patent rights and profits.
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Post by Trog on May 23, 2016 5:52:09 GMT
Many clever ideas to minimise the need for antibiotics. What is interesting though is the interventionist attempt to fund research. The market could have taken care of this without the waste always accompanying (socialist) interventionism - setting up structures, paying salaries, combating fraud and theft of the funds involved (frictional costs, I call it). The market could have taken care of it under improved protection of patent rights and profits. I'm coming increasingly to the conclusion that we lived in the golden age of civilised existence on planet earth. i.e. from about 10 years after WWII, until the fall of the Soviet Union, which released the genii from the bottle. (Gorbachev said: "I'm going to do the worst thing to you (the USA/Europe) that it is possible to do. I'm going to remove your enemy." )
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Post by cjm on May 23, 2016 13:24:58 GMT
I'm coming increasingly to the conclusion that we lived in the golden age of civilised existence on planet earth. i.e. from about 10 years after WWII, until the fall of the Soviet Union, which released the genii from the bottle. (Gorbachev said: "I'm going to do the worst thing to you (the USA/Europe) that it is possible to do. I'm going to remove your enemy." ) Very interesting idea. One would have thought that with the fall of Communism, all central command thinking would be under suspicion. It seems though as if socialism has received a second life with so many people hell-bent on proving that freemarket theories are wrong and immoral. The negation of the value of the individual, individual responsibility and various freedoms, is today the opium of the masses. In my view socialism can only work in wealthy societies - those in which capitalism has created sufficient wealth to cover the frictional socialist costs I referred to earlier. Be that as it may, I am astounded by Gorbachev's remark as it seems to come true.
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Post by Trog on May 23, 2016 14:09:27 GMT
...In my view socialism can only work in wealthy societies - those in which capitalism has created sufficient wealth to cover the frictional socialist costs I referred to earlier. I don't think that socialism can work ever, under any circumstances. The reason being that it is founded on a lie - the lie that all people are of equal value. This is manifestly untrue, and it is precisely the attempt to prop up this lie which must inevitably lead to totalitarianism: The state has no choice but to regulate everything to the extent that everybody does, indeed, become of equal value. The fact that this necessitates a grossly unequal society to implement (the power of some being able to dictate - 'thou shalt not be any more competent than anybody else') is, of course, an irony that they are clearly incapable of grasping. So, there are many, and many levels, of non sequiturs associated with the ideology. The universe does not tolerate lies. It mercilessly culls everything that would attempt to build its existence on an untruth.
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Post by cjm on May 23, 2016 17:31:15 GMT
...In my view socialism can only work in wealthy societies - those in which capitalism has created sufficient wealth to cover the frictional socialist costs I referred to earlier. I don't think that socialism can work ever, under any circumstances... What I had in mind was that socialism will have the appearance of working until the money runs out. For the rest, I agree. Capitalism is often portrayed as a complete abdication of any social control or conscience. Nothing could be further from the truth as freedom (one of the cornerstones of capitalism) has to be maintained by coercion, education and law and the military and the police. A massive social investment has to be made to maintain the conditions necessary for the system to work. In addition, it is important to guard against monopolies and to ensure the free flow of information necessary to make rational decisions. The modern day theory also recognises that the system is not perfect and that adjustments of all kinds have to be made from time to time. Even the law of contract (for example) involves intervention as in a free- for- all setting a person would be allowed to change his mind about honouring obligations under a contract up to the last moment. This would ensure that goods (for example) move to where it is most required in terms of price signals. Such free- for- all is checked by the law of contract.
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Post by cjm on May 29, 2016 15:34:30 GMT
Dangerous New Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria Reach U.S.Woman infected with microbes that fight a last-line-of-defense drug; common infections could become untreatable By Melinda Wenner Moyer on May 27, 2016 A dangerous new form of antibiotic resistance has spread to the United States, according to a report published Thursday. Researchers at the Department of Defense announced that a Pennsylvania woman developed a urinary tract infection (UTI) with bacteria that fought off an antibiotic of last resort called colistin, and had 15 genes for resistance to other antibiotics. Until now, many bacteria have been vulnerable to colistin, even if they have been able to survive other medications. Since this type of resistance can easily spread between bacteria, the findings have sounded alarm bells among scientists over fears that common infections will soon be untreatable. Bacteria have exhibited colistin resistance in the past, but this time it is different: Previous forms of the resistance weakened the microbes, and the resistance genes were located on DNA that was not easily shared among bacteria. But in November 2015, Chinese and British researchers discovered that mcr-1, a new gene for colistin resistance, was circulating among animals and people in China and was housed on a circular piece of bacteria DNA called a plasmid. Bacteria carrying this plasmid can share copies of it with other bacteria when they come into contact, which allows the colistin resistance to spread widely and rapidly. Because colistin is commonly used in food animals in China, but not in people, “the emergence of mcr-1 likely occurred because of extensive use of colistin in food animal production—which is yet another example of how injudicious use of antimicrobials comes back to hurt us,” explains James Johnson, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Minnesota. Soon after the Chinese study was published, researchers in Europe and Canada announced that they had found mcr-1-mediated colistin resistance, too. And now, thanks to newly launched Department of Defense surveillance efforts, it has been discovered here in the U.S. as well. In May researchers at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center began testing drug-resistant Escherichia coli bacteria isolated from U.S. patients who had been treated at various institutions. That is when they identified the first instance of mcr-1-mediated colistin resistance in bacteria, collected from a woman treated for a UTI in late April at an outpatient military medical center. It also seems to have reached America’s livestock: In a blog post published on Thursday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Department of Health and Human Services announced that they had discovered colistin-resistant bacteria in a sample taken from the intestine of an American pig. People may pick up these bacteria in various ways, including from their food. Although the types of E. coli that cause UTIs are found within the urinary tract, they typically end up there because they have migrated from the gut. Research suggests that these types of E. coli often contaminate raw meat; in 2010 the National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System, a collaborative governmental project, reported that more than 75 percent of retail chicken and turkey meat was contaminated with E. coli and that many of these bacteria were resistant to multiple antibiotics. A separate 2011 study based on this data reported that more than one-fifth of E. coli found on poultry meat were of the type that can—if ingested when food is not cooked properly--migrate from the gut and cause serious infections such as UTIs. Ultimately, the big fear is that the newly discovered mcr-1 gene will end up being picked up by other multi-drug-resistant bacteria--particularly a kind known as Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae, or CRE. These microbes are resistant to a class of drugs called carbapenems, which are reserved to treat certain resistant infections. Infections with CRE are “becoming more and more common,” says Lance Price, a microbiologist who directs the Antibiotic Resistance Action Center at George Washington University’s Milken Institute School of Public Health—and right now, colistin is among the only drugs that can cure them. If CRE end up intermingling with bacteria containing the mcr-1 gene inside a person or animal’s gut, or even on a piece of meat—and this could already be happening unbeknownst to anyone—the world could suddenly be faced with pan-drug-resistant bacteria. “Then it’s a royal flush—the infection has an unbeatable hand,” Price says. “It’s untreatable."
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Post by cjm on Jun 25, 2016 7:56:18 GMT
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Post by cjm on Jul 30, 2016 6:18:39 GMT
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Post by Trog on Jul 30, 2016 7:42:18 GMT
Why don't they just make it illegal to sell antibiotics to anyone other than medical professionals? In most parts of the (Western) world I believe that is actually the case, is it not? Personally, I don't have a problem with antibiotics applied in low doses for growth enhancement, or whatever they call it - the crux being that it should be a very narrow range of antibiotics which are not used in any other way. The problem of drug-resistant bacteria developing as an agent of human infection then vanishes - some bacteria may develop resistance to those few antibiotics used by producers, but they will not be resistant to any antibiotics in medical use.
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Post by cjm on Jul 30, 2016 22:22:59 GMT
Personally, I don't have a problem with antibiotics applied in low doses for growth enhancement, or whatever they call it - the crux being that it should be a very narrow range of antibiotics which are not used in any other way. The problem of drug-resistant bacteria developing as an agent of human infection then vanishes - some bacteria may develop resistance to those few antibiotics used by producers, but they will not be resistant to any antibiotics in medical use. In SA at least certain veterinary antibiotics are only available from vets. For a long time Terramycin (and its generic equivalents) were freely available over the counter. Perhaps that is still so but the drug is no longer effective (well, not under our conditions - it seems that this is a widespread problem though). Terramycin is/was used in humans as well. I am not sure what the effect of bacterial resistance in animals would be on treatment in humans. Antibiotics are often administered in feed on a regular basis to animals. This perhaps is where the problem lies. The growth aspect is more directly linked to growth hormones. The dangers posed by such practices are hard to fathom. Some say it poses no danger, other disagree. From a feedlot point of view I have been told that in the absence of certain diets, the administration of hormones is largely ineffective.
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Post by cjm on Aug 4, 2016 8:33:08 GMT
Giganten strijden samen tegen astma, artritis en diabetesDoor: Lidwien Dobber − 01/08/16, 17:16 Medicijngigant GlaxoSmithKline en Google-moederbedrijf Alphabet steken 640 miljoen euro in de zoektocht naar een nieuwe behandeling van diabetes, artritis en astma. Ze willen die aandoeningen niet te lijf met pillen of vaccins, maar met piepkleine apparaatjes die de elektrische signalen van zenuwen stimuleren dan wel blokkeren. ... Dat beide bedrijven diep in de buidel tasten om deze innovatieve methode uit te ontwikkelen, is niet alleen medisch interessant. Grote economische instituten als het IMF en de Oeso smeken het bedrijfsleven al jaren om meer geld te steken in innovatie. Nieuwe vindingen zorgen voor nieuwe bedrijvigheid en alleen die kan de kwakkelende wereldeconomie een slinger geven.
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Post by cjm on Sept 23, 2016 13:27:41 GMT
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