| I did a pharmacy degree circa 1983-87 in the UK. Antibiotic resistance was already a pressing problem. Penicillin-V was little more use than a placebo as of 1984; Amoxicillin was in danger, MRSA was already out there. The big short-term hope was Augmentin (Amoxicillin/clavulanic acid) -- clavulanic acid was a beta-lactamase inhibitor, beta-lactamase being the primary pathway for penicillin resistance in bacteria, so it was somewhat effective against penicillin-resistant infections. But resistance was already showing up for almost every antibiotic on the market except vancomycin (which is pretty nasty stuff, toxicity-wise). Today, resistance to vancomycin and other antibiotics of last resort is a thing. So there are infections out there that will kill you gruesomely, just as there were in the 19th century and earlier, because we collectively dropped the ball. As with anthropogenic climate change, the writing has been on the wall for decades -- and has been systematically ignored by policy-makers. Adding antibiotics to animal feed improves weight gain in farm animals so farmers still shovel the stuff by the bucketload. But it also applies a selection pressure for antibiotic resistance to the bacteria infesting those animals, and when they go to the slaughterhouse the resistant strains migrate into the human reservoir. And this says nothing about the structural incentives to discount antibiotic R&D in the commercial pharmaceutical industry. (Bluntly: they're not profitable enough to bother with, because bacterial infections are acute disease -- you cure it in a few days or weeks, your customer goes away satisfied. Unlike antidepressants or anti-hypertensives or diabetes meds, which the patient is typically on for years to life.) We should have restricted access to antibiotics the way we (try) to restrict opiates. Failing that we should have government funded R&D via non-profits. Only now it's too late and corrective action won't take effect for years. |