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> > Bacteria develop resistance to antibiotic drugs largely through a natural > evolutionary process, demonstrating the Darwinian concept of “survival of > the fittest.” As doctors deploy drugs to fight nasty bacteria, some of the > bacteria inevitably figure out how to survive despite physicians’ best > efforts to wage war against them. The ones that survive multiply rapidly > and over time become more prevalent, spreading to and infecting others. As > doctors respond by prescribing ever-stronger medications (or patients > self-medicate), more and more bacteria continue to evolve, and antibiotic, > or antimicrobial, resistance continues to spread. > > Antimicrobial resistance has already started to threaten the everyday > treatment of ordinary cuts and infections that most people take for > granted. If bacteria grow more resistant to the antibiotic drugs doctors > use to fight them, routine aspects of modern medicine, such as hip > surgeries, will soon become impossible. Treating a child’s strep throat > might become difficult and performing cardiac surgery or a cesarean section > might become too dangerous within the next few years, returning the medical > profession to the primitive era before antibiotics existed. > > Pharmaceutical companies have devoted most of their resources toward > fighting cancer and other chronic diseases that primarily afflict patients > in the rich world whose insurance companies can afford to pay, which are > therefore much more lucrative. The last new class of commercial antibiotics > was developed in the 1980s > <https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/03/14/first-new-antibiotic-in-30-years-discovered-in-major-breakthroug/>. > > > https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/06/06/superbugs-are-going-to-eat-us-alive/ > > _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
