Can anything stop the superbug?

[shawshank62]

Quote:

Children gash their legs and graze their elbows. It's normal. Usually they recover incredibly fast. Occasionally, if the wound starts to look a little dodgy, they may be given an antibiotic - just in case it's infected. But in Texas, increasing numbers of healthy kids with the ordinary childhood lacerations from falling out of trees or being pushed over in the playground are being admitted to hospital. And some of them never make it home.

They are victims of what has been described as the largest bacterial epidemic in the world. Behind it is the superbug - MRSA - a variant of a common-or-garden bacteria, staphylococcus aureus, which no longer responds to the usual antibiotics, such as meth icillin. In the UK, the superbug is notorious for attacking frail, elderly, very sick people in hospital. In Texas, it is killing healthy children.

Here is the biggest problem...

Quote:

Most of the drug companies, meanwhile, no longer have any interest in hunting down new antibiotics because it's not financially worthwhile. Roche has dropped antibiotic research, while GlaxoSmithKline, BristolMyersSquibb and Eli Lilly have all cut down. The only company to have entered the field is Novartis.

"Virtually all the pharmaceutical companies that were interested in developing antibacterials have pulled out of research in the field," says Richard Wise, who heads the government's specialist advisory committee on antimicrobial resistance.

"We had a plethora of drugs in the 70s to the 90s. In the last two years, only one new agent has come along, called linezolid. The reasons are fairly straightforward. If you were the chief finance officer of a major drug company, you would far rather put your research pounds into developing drugs that were going to be used on a chronic basis for diseases like Alzheimer's, schizophrenia or ulcers, where people have a lifetime's illness."

Drugs such as statins for heart disease are a goldmine - urged on everybody with any sign of heart disease and potentially on an entire generation. And they will be told to keep taking the tablets for life. A course of antibiotics is rarely more than seven days.

And the very reason that we need new antibiotics is a disincentive for the drug companies to invent them. Resistance always sets in. The useful lifespan of the drug will be much shorter than that of any painkiller or antidepressant. The industry claims it costs $800m (£407m) to develop a single new drug - although critics say that figure contains marketing and advertising spend as well as the costs of the many drugs that fall by the wayside. They are unlikely to get the sort of profit their shareholders want in five to 10 years for drugs that matter so much but are used for such a short time - even if the companies set an astronomical price.

"The fact that disease-causing bacteria soon become resistant to any antibiotic has further reduced the interest of pharmaceutical companies in funding the research required to discover new antibiotics and bring them to the market," says Professor James. "They would rather concentrate on developing drugs for 'lifestyle' conditions such as high blood pressure or diabetes that patients need every day to control their health."

[surreal]

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Does it scare anybody else that we put profit before our own well being? We throw ethics out the door, in search of profit. Pharmaceutical companies have become on the of the biggest scams in the last 20 years, and contribute more and more to the already disheveled healthcare system. In the next 50 years I really fear for all of us who who get microbial infections, because there is a good chance we won't be able to fight these infections.

There are a lot of ailments we put before our wellbeing.
"Ethics out the door instead of profits "is a nieve way at looking at the pharmaceutical companies. How do they stay in business without profits?
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dhqp/ar_mrsa_ca_public.html

[jokostel]

kinda like cancer,aids,heart research projects...
they make more money off of NOT releasing or finding a cure...than to just release a "wonder drug" to repair the damage.

[surreal]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jokostel

kinda like cancer,aids,heart research projects...
they make more money off of NOT releasing or finding a cure...than to just release a "wonder drug" to repair the damage.

are you serious?

[zen]

Quote:

Originally Posted by surreal

are you serious?

Yeah, ya lost me there Joko.

[Mike]

Quote:

Originally Posted by shawshank62

We throw ethics out the door, in search of profit. Pharmaceutical companies have become on the of the biggest scams in the last 20 years, and contribute more and more to the already disheveled healthcare system.

Does anyone find it ironic that working in the pharmaceutical/biomedical sector just so happens to be one of the best sectors to work in right now? I don't think it's a coincidence...

In reality, I think too many people bring their emotions to the table when talking about new medicines and cures. From some people I have spoken with, you would think it would be able to just create a cure for AIDS and stuff like prions.

However, drug companies usually make a wide variety of products -- many that don't get the press time as the more popular drugs. I am not convinced the company will simply stop researching certain antibiotics.

Quote:

Originally Posted by surreal

are you serious?

[jokostel]

think about it.
aids and cancer research... if they suddenly "found" a cure...
do you realize how much money they would loose?
let alone how many jobs would be lost?
from a purly fiscal standpoint... a cure is a BAD thing.
however, from a humanitarain standpoint... they are evil incarnate.

[Mike]

joko, again, are you joking?

Do you know how many types of cancer there are? How many other diseases researchers can work on? People in the biomedical companies are not worried about job losses due to finding a cure or treatment.

[Epidemic]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jokostel

think about it.
aids and cancer research... if they suddenly "found" a cure...
do you realize how much money they would loose?
let alone how many jobs would be lost?
from a purly fiscal standpoint... a cure is a BAD thing.
however, from a humanitarain standpoint... they are evil incarnate.

I know some doctors, I have met some researchers. I have no problem with some muckety muck trying to hide something but the troops are genuine and would leak a cure. Somewhere somebody would have said eureka.

Oncologists have been known to cry do you think they (the crybaby ones) would hide it?

besides the one who finds the cure can charge an arm and a leg for it, much the same as they do for their traditional cures.

[Mike]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Epidemic

besides the one who finds the cure can charge an arm and a leg for it, much the same as they do for their traditional cures.

Aside from the obvious humanitarian effort, this happens to be another one of the large driving forces behind research. The main company which finds a cure definitely knows they will see money pile in.