Antibiotic Resistent Bacteria

I am interested in hearing your thoughts on antibiotic resistant bacteria.

In a nutshell: By heavy overuse of antibiotics we breed resistent bacteria. We kill the bacteria that can't survive this cure, but the stronger ones survive and duplicate. After years of doing this we breed deadly killer bacteria.

How long do you think it will take before antibiotics are totally useless, and we are back to square one on fighting infections?

What's the main reason causing this effect? food production? Medical use? Other?

The primary cause is people not completing antibiotic treatments: a lot stop when they lose their symptoms, rather than when the doctor says. That way more bacteria survives, and can develop. If people would continue, there'll be less resistant bacteria.
However, radiation treatments will prove quite successful by 2022, or so. They eradicate all foreign organisms, and the body survives. After that, all it takes is the replacement of more beneficial bacteria that got killed too.

I thought this was another evolution thread. All well. I'll subscribe in case it does.

I thought this was another evolution thread. All well. I'll subscribe in case it does.

If you will, one must of course understand evolution by artificial selection to understand this problem.

The primary cause is people not completing antibiotic treatments: a lot stop when they lose their symptoms, rather than when the doctor says. That way more bacteria survives, and can develop. If people would continue, there'll be less resistant bacteria.
However, radiation treatments will prove quite successful by 2022, or so. They eradicate all foreign organisms, and the body survives. After that, all it takes is the replacement of more beneficial bacteria that got killed too.

I agree, but dont you think heavy overuse of antibiotics in animal feed to prevent infectious diseases in food production contributes just as much or perhaps more?

That's interesting about radiation treatments, but I don't know alot about it. My thoughts were that this problem may be the kick we need to revolutionize genetic engineering.

Quote from: JohnTitor on December 31, 2015, 11:33:20 AM

The primary cause is people not completing antibiotic treatments: a lot stop when they lose their symptoms, rather than when the doctor says. That way more bacteria survives, and can develop. If people would continue, there'll be less resistant bacteria.
However, radiation treatments will prove quite successful by 2022, or so. They eradicate all foreign organisms, and the body survives. After that, all it takes is the replacement of more beneficial bacteria that got killed too.

I agree, but dont you think heavy overuse of antibiotics in animal feed to prevent infectious diseases in food production contributes just as much or perhaps more?

That's interesting about radiation treatments, but I don't know alot about it. My thoughts were that this problem may be the kick we need to revolutionize genetic engineering.

Overuse of antiobiotics is better than the alternative. The diseases that affect animals only rarely mutate to hurt humans, and even they won't last long enough as animals won't go without food, so if done properly there won't be anything left. if you're talking about some antibiotics making it through to human consumption, then that's functionally vaccinating bacteria, giving them too little a dose to do much harm, so that's a problem as well.

Genetic engineering is like using an apocalypse as a mousetrap. You kill the mouse, but look how much work goes into it. The human genome is the single most complex entity on the face of the planet. Trying to engineer and manipulate even the smallest part of just one person's genetic code has to be done on a case by case basis, and the level of programming required (because no human could keep all that in their head) is terrifying. I doubt it will ever be doable.