Superbugs: The end of anti-biotics

[untermensche]

Superbugs will lose their antibiotic resistance for the same reason that humans no longer have an appendix, nasal sinuses, tonsils, a coccyx, wisdom teeth, auricular muscles, orbitalis muscles...

To compare a complex multi-cellular animal like a human and it's evolution to a single celled bacteria shows a real lack of biological understanding.

And we are not talking about vestigial organs.

We are talking about mechanisms of resistance. Essential mechanisms for survival.

When a bacteria abandons one mechanism for another to gain resistance to antibiotics it has altered it's ability to deal with threats.

To compare it to vestigial organs is to say digestion or respiration, activities that only require base efficiency, are the same thing as the immune system.

Gibberish and a real ignorance of simple biology.

 

[Keith&Co.]

This may actually be correct. If the super bugs have some sort of disadvantage, such as a poor breeding rate then the wild variety will take over. But if this assumption is not correct or one country in the world refuses to stop using that antibiotic then the super bugs will continue to exist.

The thing is, when I get infected by the superbug, I'm not an antibiotic environment. The superbug thrives pretty well, well enough to travel from the vector to me, then thrives in that environment (me without drugs), then thrives right along as the doctors start applying antibiotics.

The superbugs are not showing any great disadvantages compared to the 'wild' strains running around.

 

[Keith&Co.]

When a bacteria abandons one mechanism for another to gain resistance to antibiotics it has altered it's ability to deal with threats.

That's silly.
If bacteria have to abandon a resistance mechanism to gain another one, we would not have superbugs.
If the 'bug' could only be resistant to one drug, or one class of drugs, at a time then doctors would just have to try different drug schedules until they had an effect.

 

[untermensche]

This may actually be correct. If the super bugs have some sort of disadvantage, such as a poor breeding rate then the wild variety will take over. But if this assumption is not correct or one country in the world refuses to stop using that antibiotic then the super bugs will continue to exist.

The thing is, when I get infected by the superbug, I'm not an antibiotic environment. The superbug thrives pretty well, well enough to travel from the vector to me, then thrives in that environment (me without drugs), then thrives right along as the doctors start applying antibiotics.

The superbugs are not showing any great disadvantages compared to the 'wild' strains running around.

This is too amusing.

First of all anybody who calls bacteria "bugs" should automatically be discounted.

All bacteria exist within an antibiotic environment. Antibiotics are in the environment.

And if you were exposed to any of these highly resistant bacteria it is likely your immune system could fight off the infection.

They are mainly an issue in people with compromised immune systems. The sick and the elderly.

 

[untermensche]

When a bacteria abandons one mechanism for another to gain resistance to antibiotics it has altered it's ability to deal with threats.

That's silly.
If bacteria have to abandon a resistance mechanism to gain another one, we would not have superbugs.
If the 'bug' could only be resistant to one drug, or one class of drugs, at a time then doctors would just have to try different drug schedules until they had an effect.

A population of bacteria will retain features which allow it to survive.

And it can gain these features one antibiotic at a time.

But when the antibiotics are removed the bacteria now have to survive with other methods. They are not dealing with antibiotics anymore. They are mainly dealing with immune systems. Which the wild type has some ability to overcome and many people died from infections from the wild type. Infections were a huge problem until antibiotics. So without antibiotics all bacteria, the wild type and the new mutations, will now be able to infect and will fight for survival in other ways.

All these mechanisms to deal with antibiotics will be dead weight and they have replaced other mechanisms that best defeat threats that are not antibiotics.

And these added mechanisms create changes to the bacteria. Changes to it's permeability, it's shape, it's mobility and metabolism.

Again, if these features gave an advantage prior to antibiotics they would have existed because bacterial mutation rates were the same before antibiotics as after. These traits had the same likelihood of existing in the pre-antibiotic world. If they gave some advantage then and did not give a disadvantage they would have existed. The fact that these traits did not exist prior to the introduction of antibiotics shows they will not be the best traits to have if antibiotics are removed.

 

[Keith&Co.]

This is too amusing.

First of all anybody who calls bacteria "bugs" should automatically be discounted.

...in a thread about 'superbugs.'
Yeah.
Okay.

 

[untermensche]

This is too amusing.

First of all anybody who calls bacteria "bugs" should automatically be discounted.

...in a thread about 'superbugs.'
Yeah.
Okay.

It was a joke.

And it seems the only thing you objected to.

 

[fromderinside]

And if you were exposed to any of these highly resistant bacteria it is likely your immune system could fight off the infection.

Fortunately there is evidence on that. Those not immunized fall very quickly to super bugs while they hold their own against your novelly described 'wild' type.

 

[untermensche]

And if you were exposed to any of these highly resistant bacteria it is likely your immune system could fight off the infection.

Fortunately there is evidence on that. Those not immunized fall very quickly to super bugs while they hold their own against your novelly described 'wild' type.

There is no immunization for these bacteria.

Health care workers are exposed to them all the time.

And "wild type" is a very common concept in microbiology.

0 for 3. Right about your average.

 

[fromderinside]

Fortunately there is evidence on that. Those not immunized fall very quickly to super bugs while they hold their own against your novelly described 'wild' type.

There is no immunization for these bacteria.

Health care workers are exposed to them all the time.

And "wild type" is a very common concept in microbiology.

0 for 3. Right about your average.

+1 natural immunization, ie our immune system, has come to balance with most bacteria. (we're still here)
+1 health care workers have other protection. When this is compromised they get sick and die. (Ebola epidemic)
+1  [WIKI]Wild type[/WIKI] is a technical term which you misapply (a base condition or test group re mutant analysis)

Obviously your fingers are much quicker than your mind ... and your mind is operating on belief rather than evidence and experiment in this technical area.

 

[untermensche]

There is no immunization for these bacteria.

Health care workers are exposed to them all the time.

And "wild type" is a very common concept in microbiology.

0 for 3. Right about your average.

+1 natural immunization, ie our immune system, has come to balance with most bacteria. (we're still here)
+1 health care workers have other protection. When this is compromised they get sick and die. (Ebola epidemic)
+1  [WIKI]Wild type[/WIKI] is a technical term which you misapply (a base condition or test group re mutant analysis)

Obviously your fingers are much quicker than your mind ... and your mind is operating on belief rather than evidence and experiment in this technical area.

The human immune system has undergone no changes since the introduction of antibiotics.

Ebola is a virus. A whole different issue from bacterial infection.

The first sentence of the Wiki article:

Wild type (WT) refers to the phenotype of the typical form of a species as it occurs in nature.

Sure sounds like the dominant type of bacteria that existed prior to human antibiotics were introduced.

Once again 0 for 3. Your record is intact.

 

[beero1000]

I suppose now is as good a time as any to point out that it is entirely possible, without the use of antibiotics, for drug-resistant bacteria to be even more dangerous to humans than their normal cousins. Nonlinear optimization, local maxima, and all that.

 

[untermensche]

I suppose now is as good a time as any to point out that it is entirely possible, without the use of antibiotics, for drug-resistant bacteria to be even more dangerous to humans than their normal cousins. Nonlinear optimization, local maxima, and all that.

Which specific mechanism that grants antibiotic resistance to the bacteria makes them more dangerous to humans?

These mechanisms have nothing to do with fighting off the human immune system. They allow the bacteria to resist antibiotics.

 

[beero1000]

I suppose now is as good a time as any to point out that it is entirely possible, without the use of antibiotics, for drug-resistant bacteria to be even more dangerous to humans than their normal cousins. Nonlinear optimization, local maxima, and all that.

Which specific mechanism that grants antibiotic resistance to the bacteria makes them more dangerous to humans?

These mechanisms have nothing to do with fighting off the human immune system. They allow the bacteria to resist antibiotics.

I have no idea which specific mechanism would do it, or if any exist. All I said is that it's possible - you're the one making absolute claims. Care to justify them?

 

[untermensche]

Which specific mechanism that grants antibiotic resistance to the bacteria makes them more dangerous to humans?

These mechanisms have nothing to do with fighting off the human immune system. They allow the bacteria to resist antibiotics.

I have no idea which specific mechanism would do it, or if any exist. All I said is that it's possible - you're the one making absolute claims. Care to justify them?

So you spew worthless garbage you can't back up but the problem is me and my absolute claims?

 

[beero1000]

I have no idea which specific mechanism would do it, or if any exist. All I said is that it's possible - you're the one making absolute claims. Care to justify them?

So you spew worthless garbage you can't back up but the problem is me and my absolute claims?

Yup.

 

[Bomb#20]

I suppose now is as good a time as any to point out that it is entirely possible, without the use of antibiotics, for drug-resistant bacteria to be even more dangerous to humans than their normal cousins. Nonlinear optimization, local maxima, and all that.

Which specific mechanism that grants antibiotic resistance to the bacteria makes them more dangerous to humans?

Well, there's always the obvious: the process by which a lineage of wild bacteria evolves into a multiply resistant superbug typically involves jumping a lot of hosts, in order to have gotten the opportunity in the first place to have been incompletely treated multiple times. So it can be expected to select for contagiousness.

 

[untermensche]

Which specific mechanism that grants antibiotic resistance to the bacteria makes them more dangerous to humans?

Well, there's always the obvious: the process by which a lineage of wild bacteria evolves into a multiply resistant superbug typically involves jumping a lot of hosts, in order to have gotten the opportunity in the first place to have been incompletely treated multiple times. So it can be expected to select for contagiousness.

These are bacteria that infect humans.

Yes they are contagious.

But being able to resist antibiotics makes them no more contagious. It just makes them harder to kill once an infection has been established.

 

[Bomb#20]

Well, there's always the obvious: the process by which a lineage of wild bacteria evolves into a multiply resistant superbug typically involves jumping a lot of hosts, in order to have gotten the opportunity in the first place to have been incompletely treated multiple times. So it can be expected to select for contagiousness.

Yes they are contagious.

But being able to resist antibiotics makes them no more contagious.

I didn't say it does; neither did beero1000. I exhibited a mechanism, as you requested, which would result in his hypothesized drug-resistant bacteria that are even more dangerous to non-antibiotic-using humans than their normal cousins. Correlation is not causation; A and B are often correlated because C causes both of them. So I thought of a C: the same environmental conditions that favor mutations for antibiotic resistance will favor mutations for being more contagious, so the two characteristics will tend to evolve in parallel on different genes in the same genome.

 

[untermensche]

Yes they are contagious.

But being able to resist antibiotics makes them no more contagious.

I didn't say it does; neither did beero1000. I exhibited a mechanism, as you requested, which would result in his hypothesized drug-resistant bacteria that are even more dangerous to non-antibiotic-using humans than their normal cousins. Correlation is not causation; A and B are often correlated because C causes both of them. So I thought of a C: the same environmental conditions that favor mutations for antibiotic resistance will favor mutations for being more contagious, so the two characteristics will tend to evolve in parallel on different genes in the same genome.

You gave no mechanism.

The mechanism of resistance is what the bacteria is doing or what it has to defeat the antibiotic.

This is how bacteria become resistant. By sheer chance one bacteria has a mutation that creates a mechanism which defeats an antibiotic. With asexual reproduction this trait will remain in all offspring unless another mutation occurs.

So the question was: Which specific mechanism of resistance to an antibiotic makes the bacteria more dangerous to people?