[HN Gopher] 'Smart' antibiotic can kill deadly bacteria while sp...
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'Smart' antibiotic can kill deadly bacteria while sparing the
microbiome
Author : gmays
Score : 34 points
Date : 2024-05-30 18:43 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nature.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nature.com)
| smolder wrote:
| > "Around ten to twenty new Gram-negative antibiotics have been
| discovered in the last ten years", he adds, but none has gained
| approval from the US Food and Drug Administration.
|
| They mention that novel antibiotics aren't very profitable, but
| also that approval can take 20+ years. What's not clear is if the
| referenced antibiotics are all in the long process of approval or
| if they're considered uneconomical or some other issue. My
| impression was we have a strong need for approved treatments for
| resistant bacteria, given the way the problem is talked about in
| the media. I would have expected there'd be a market for them at
| some price that works.
| John23832 wrote:
| > What's not clear is if the referenced antibiotics are all in
| the long process of approval or if they're considered
| uneconomical or some other issue. My impression was we have a
| strong need for approved treatments for resistant bacteria,
| given the way the problem is talked about in the media. I would
| have expected there'd be a market for them at some price that
| works.
|
| The reason novel antibiotics are not profitable is because we
| specifically DON'T want to use them. These novel antibiotics
| become fourth, fifth, sixth options. And that's after probably
| retrying the previous line for multiple rounds at bigger
| dosages, or in combination therapy. So in reality, that means
| that drug companies are not set to make a lot of money on them.
| Most of the novel antibiotic development funding comes directly
| from the government. And even that is being cut.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| Of course: "In mice."
|
| I think we would do better to focus on improving water
| infrastructure and hygiene resources in very poor parts of the
| world. We let these disease-ridden cesspits develop and fester,
| can med-evac someone out by plane thereby exporting the problem
| and we should just not let it happen to start with.
| John23832 wrote:
| This shows a misunderstanding of the purpose of research into
| novel antibiotics.
|
| Acinetobacter baumannii happens in your closest hospital.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| African tribes stopped an ebola epidemic. One of the things
| they did was they told people "Don't go to the white man's
| hospital." because you went in with something fixable, like a
| broken leg, and died of ebola.
|
| The book I read that talked about that is called The Hot
| Zone.
|
| I wish we had posted useful info online by the government
| during covid and tried to keep people out of the hospital.
| Rest assured, I'm abundantly familiar with the dangers of
| hospital acquired infections.
|
| But I try to not shit stir. I try to stick as much as
| possible to constructive observations.
| John23832 wrote:
| > African tribes stopped an ebola epidemic. One of the
| things they did was they told people "Don't go to the white
| man's hospital." because you went in with something
| fixable, like a broken leg, and died of ebola.
|
| African tribes were decimated by ebola. Survivorship bias
| and the lack of historical focus on Africa might make you
| think otherwise though.
|
| That's like saying China stopped the black plague... no,
| lots of people died, the numbers just weren't counted. And
| the black plague could have been prevented with...
| Doxycycline.
|
| > I wish we had posted useful info online by the government
| during covid and tried to keep people out of the hospital.
| Rest assured, I'm abundantly familiar with the dangers of
| hospital acquired infections.
|
| Well, you implied that multi drug resistant infections can
| be stopped by sanitation in third world countries (they
| can't, though it would be nice to help out), and invoked
| covid conspiracy at the same time (when covid is a virus
| and we're talking about antibiotics).
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| No.
|
| There are many moving parts to this problem. The article
| in question indicates they have discovered multiple new
| antibiotics and not approved them, so more novel drug
| research is unlikely to make much of a difference here.
|
| One element of the problem is lack of adequate
| infrastructure. I think it's much more solvable and would
| do more good.
|
| My observations about covid have nothing to do with
| conspiracy theories. Going to the hospital is one means
| to get covid and hospital acquired covid tends to be
| ugly.
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7827479/
|
| The government encouraged people to try to stay away from
| the hospital during the pandemic but failed to give them
| any meaningful support for helping them self treat at
| home.
|
| I went looking for official sources of recommendations to
| try to share with people and couldn't find any, so it's
| unsurprising people were turning to things like
| Ivermectin in desperation.
|
| Nature abhors a vacuum. Given the lack of solid info they
| could rely, people failed around looking for any option
| they could find, no matter how questionable.
| helph67 wrote:
| "Overall, mice and humans share virtually the same set of
| genes. Almost every gene found in one species so far has been
| found in a closely related form in the other. Of the
| approximately 4,000 genes that have been studied, less than 10
| are found in one species but not in the other."
| https://www.genome.gov/10001345/importance-of-mouse-genome
| rubatuga wrote:
| One thing is certain, bacteria always find a way.
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