[themartorana]

Officials say the threat to human health is low, but is under ongoing review.

I feel better?

Is my kid going to live in a post-apocalyptic world where a new Black Plague has wiped out 2/3 of the population because it is completely antibiotic resistant? Or will new solutions (maybe ones that attack at a molecular level) be available first?

I'm not asking rhetorically, any input would be awesome.

[mod]

From what I've read, the antibiotics can be phased out, and then later, phased back in.

Because the competition is so high, the bacteria can't afford the energy/resources to continue resistance to antibiotics that aren't in use--they are out-competed.

Therefore, currently ineffective antibiotics will become effective again in the future.

That said, I did not read if this is being practiced already.

[placeybordeaux]

The major problem here is not that there are not ways forward, but that we need to act together as a species to solve this problem. Development of drug resistance can happen anywhere that antibiotics are used and best practices are not observed everywhere.

An interesting first step might be to restrict some antibiotics to human use only. At least then we wouldn't be breeding resistance for cheaper meat.

[giarc]

Infection control professional here.

This is being practiced, but not intentionally. Some drugs are just not used anymore because they have become somewhat ineffective against most organisms, so they are shelved due to the fact they are not economically wise to produce, not because we are saving them.

[placeybordeaux]

I don't think the worry is that we will suffer a Black Plague again, but more than almost every instance of surgery or anything that leaves a person immunocompromised will lead directly to infection.

A lot of modern medicine suddenly becomes useless because the health benefits that it brings are nullified by the fact that an infection is sure to follow.

Organ transplants and chemotherapy are two big ones that become near impossible if antibiotics are useless.

[Camillo]

> Is my kid going to live in a post-apocalyptic world where a new Black Plague has wiped out 2/3 of the population because it is completely antibiotic resistant?

Yes, but briefly.

[MawNicker]

There's always phage therapy. It's harder to get FDA approval though. Every application is uniquely modified to target a specific bacteria. This means each treatment would need its own approval under the current rules.

[yk]

(Take this as coming from someone who pays attention for some time, but is not really knowledgeable about medicine.) People are today a lot healthier than they were 50 years ago. This alone helps a lot. Additionally we have better disinfectants and better procedures and better non antibiotic drugs. So the other parts of our defense in depth are largely intact.

Additionally I read some time ago that the problem is not the difficulty of developing new antibiotics, but the collapse of antibiotics research in the 80ies. So once the field is back up, there should be new antibiotics.

So as far as I understand it, the lack of antibiotics is a big problem, but a big problem on the scale of thousands are gonna die, not millions are gonna die.

[themartorana]

It's amazing that's acceptable - but hey, publicly funding antibiotic research would be anti-American.

I mean, if you're right, it's better than millions, but it sounds relatively preventable. Or at least we could give it the old college try.

[Houshalter]

Modern sanitation helps a lot more than antibiotics. We don't throw our shit in the streets, we don't spend time around animals, people wash their hands and take showers, and we understand that sick people are contagious and can avoid them. The black plague spread through fleas on rats.

[austinjp]

"Black Plague"? Surely "the plague" or "the black death"..?