New Antibiotic?

Let's hope so. My mother endured three desperately painful and distressing months of MRSA when I thought she would die and I would never want anyone to endure that sort of experience. But new antibiotics take time to develop so we shouldn't hold our breath.

Squandered? Do you mean used when not really necessary, because of ignorance of the effects this would have? Don't forget all the times antibiotics have helped people to stay alive.

I think "squandered" is too strong a word. We haven't had antibiotics for very long. We are only human. Ignorance is allowed with something so relatively new.

I think we understand antibiotics more nowadays. In the past they were seen as a panacea. Now we now that we have to be more selective when we use them to stop the bacteria mutating and becoming immune.

I understand what crun means - the people who pester their Dr for antibiotics for a cold/sniffle/ slightest thing. Fortunately most Dr's resist but I can think of occasions in the past, when anti-B's were prescribed but with hindsight were probably superfluous.

I once had a Dr. who never looked up as a patient walked into his surgery but sat writing a prescription for an antibiotic. In those days I accepted his, so say, superior knowledge without question. He did leave the practice 'under a cloud' but not before he had done immense damage by over-prescribing antibiotics.

I had a doctor like that too. I think there were many of them who didn't realise the damage they were doing.

Doctors are still massively overprescribing antibiotics according to recent reports.

Our GP's seem always to have been cautious about prescribing antibiotics.

It's interesting that there is such a debate about over prescription of antibiotics for people, yet little in the media about the use of antibiotics in farming.

I buy organic milk, cheese, chicken, carrots and other veg if the price isn't ludicrous. I don't eat farmed fish because of the lice that result from over crowding. Non farmed salmon tastes completely different, in addition, I was nauseated to read that in the USA a farmed salmon will have eaten its weight in antibiotics before it arrives in the shops for sale. I expect it's much the same here.

I do eat meat and fish, though only on about 3 days a week. I understand why vegan/vegetarian diets are increasingly popular

My daughter works for a well known pharmaceutical company and has been working on this problem for years -although lately has had promotion and so won't be actually working in the labs now. I must ask her about this.

Good point Iam64

Also in many countries you can simply buy antibiotics over the counter.

Chatting to a friend of a relative over Christmas, who was due to go to Italy for a couple of weeks, and says she always stocks up on over the counter antibiotics whilst there. I wonder why there's this difference?

Thatbags, Antibiotic resistance was first noticed by Florey and Chain during the war whilst they were still developing penicillin, and before the finished drug was ever licenced for use. In spite of that, antibiotics have been widely used as growth promoters by farmers to improve profits, never mind the over-prescription of them. I don't think that squandered is at all strong.

My mum once said that the doctor had given her antibiotics for a heavy cold. I pointed out to her that a cold is a virus, that antibiotics don't kill viruses, and that if the doctor gave her antibiotics he presumably thought that she had some other infection. I just got one of those silent looks that told me I was being arrogant for thinking I know better than the doctor. At the time there was a big poster on the surgery wall notifying people that antibiotics don't cure colds.

When the children were small, we had an Egyptian GP, trained in the US. A very pleasant woman, but she dished out antibiotics like sweeties. This was a good 40 years ago. I consulted my GP sister before I had the prescriptions filled.

It gets confusing when a secondary, bacterial infection arises from a heavy cold. My daughter gets repeat bouts of tonsillitis and bacterial sinusitis when she catches a cold, so always ends up on antibiotics - about twice a year. Her GP and an A and E doctor explained that her respiratory airways are impaired by viral infections, making it easier for bacteria to take hold. She always has to have a long conversation with doctors who don't know this medical history amounting to 20 years. Difficult to avoid looking like an ignorant patient who is demanding antibiotics for the wrong reason.

That's a valid point whenim64. Those of us with challenged immune systems, or like your daughter sometimes need antibiotics. GP's understand this.

Wasn't there a lot of Russian in put into this research early on? I have vague memories of hearing about this?

I think the USSR did a lot of research into phages, but I don't know about antibiotics.

Crun Ah yes! I think that's probably what it was. Thanks.

OK, crun, "squandered" accepted. But antibiotics have still helped people over a lot of illness.

A few years ago when Minibags had an ear infection my GP told me that 70% of ear infections clear up by themselves within 72 hours. I said, but what about the pain? He said if I could control the pain and fever with paracetamol and ibuprofen, then it was worth trying to manage without the antibiotic. He would prescribe penicillin but in powder form so that I had a choice of whether to use it — if needed, I was to add a precise number of millilitres of water.

We managed the pain and the infection did indeed clear up without the antibiotic.

I wonder how many parents (what proportion) whose children have ear infections have been told this information and given that choice? I guess the GP has to feel confident that the parents' can cope with the 'experiment'. The pharmacist was not keen to just give me the powder but I must have convinced him of my ability to measure water precisely.

Yes, I wasn't suggesting that people hadn't benefitted greatly from antibiotics, just that more could still be benefitting if we had been more careful. My father had antibiotics the size of horse pills when he got TB again in 1961!

If anyone is interested in the story of penicilliin I can recommend this. The traditional folklore is a complete travesty, Fleming was taking the credit for the work of Florey, Chain and Heatley.

act.sumofus.org/go/9301?t=2&akid=11163.8185493.lRtXo9

Antibiotic danger by Pfizer.

Another reason not to abuse antibiotics.

Oh no iam64 - I was happily looking forward to a nice piece of salmon tonight. Now I know it will be full of antibiotics I've completely gone off it