Yesterday, I saw this article; I think this is definitely worth considering!
The problem with antibiotics is resistance. Sometimes it only takes one change in the DNA of the bacterium for that one to become resistant to an antibiotic, and if that particular species is a fast growing one, this can happen quite quickly. Another way of acquiring resistance is by picking up bits of DNA from the environment, which is not necessarily from the same species; these genes exist because antibiotics are based on products which are made by bacteria.
This may sound bad, but currently we are not in a situation where things like surgery and immunosuppression is too risky. But I do believe that we need to act before it is too late, and one of the things which I think needs to happen is for pharmaceutical companies to be more involved; people can research this all they want, but without the backing from pharma, how are these discoveries likely to become an actual drug?
As the article says, due to the fact that pharma companies are paid for sales, for many it is not profitable to work on new antibiotics; "... any new antibiotic would probably be used only as a last resort, so companies would not recover the development costs." . Therefore, giving these companies funding to support the development of antibiotics may actually be the best solution to get more of them involved in this vital search for antibiotics! After all, a lot of things that modern medicine can do depends on the ability to prevent and treat infections; surgery, chemotherapy, immunosuppression, IV treatments to an extent. Many people rely on these procedures and treatments, myself included, and I think it is very important to ensure future generations have access to these as well. This is where new antibiotics will come into its own; let's hope pharma become more interested!
The problem with antibiotics is resistance. Sometimes it only takes one change in the DNA of the bacterium for that one to become resistant to an antibiotic, and if that particular species is a fast growing one, this can happen quite quickly. Another way of acquiring resistance is by picking up bits of DNA from the environment, which is not necessarily from the same species; these genes exist because antibiotics are based on products which are made by bacteria.
This may sound bad, but currently we are not in a situation where things like surgery and immunosuppression is too risky. But I do believe that we need to act before it is too late, and one of the things which I think needs to happen is for pharmaceutical companies to be more involved; people can research this all they want, but without the backing from pharma, how are these discoveries likely to become an actual drug?
As the article says, due to the fact that pharma companies are paid for sales, for many it is not profitable to work on new antibiotics; "... any new antibiotic would probably be used only as a last resort, so companies would not recover the development costs." . Therefore, giving these companies funding to support the development of antibiotics may actually be the best solution to get more of them involved in this vital search for antibiotics! After all, a lot of things that modern medicine can do depends on the ability to prevent and treat infections; surgery, chemotherapy, immunosuppression, IV treatments to an extent. Many people rely on these procedures and treatments, myself included, and I think it is very important to ensure future generations have access to these as well. This is where new antibiotics will come into its own; let's hope pharma become more interested!