A post I came across on another forum as laid out by someone who wants regulation to come to the rescue?
thoughs?
Antibiotic resistant ‘superbugs’ have the potential to kill more people than terrorists with nuclear weapons. Just today we learned that a deadly new bug has been spreading in the UK. This bug is resistant to even the most powerful antibiotics - those which are reserved for hospital use in the west - and this bug can pass on its resistance to other diseases.
Bugs like these evolve in countries where antibiotics are unregulated.
Quote:
A study, published in the Lancet Infectious Diseases journal today, said bacteria containing the NDM-1 gene were becoming more common in India and Pakistan, and had now been imported into to Britain by people returning from these countries.
It also warned such comprehensive antibiotic resistance had the potential to cause a worldwide public health problem.
Dr Fidelma Fitzpatrick, consultant microbiologist with the HPSC, said the widespread use of non-prescription, over-the-counter antibiotics in India had led to the emergence of more drug-resistant bugs. “The more and more antibiotics that are used, the more likely the bugs are going to develop resistance in their quest to survive," she said.
So poor regulation of antibiotics half a world away is killing people here, where antibiotics are highly regulated.
Earlier this year there was a call for an international treaty on the use of antibiotics with the aim of preventing the outbreak of superbugs.
I think an international treaty is needed to address this problem. Minimum standards of regulation should be globally enforced. The UN should send in inspectors just as it does when illegal weapons are suspected. Non-compliance should result in export bans of antibiotics to the offending country.
Anything short of this could lead to vast numbers of people around the world dying from diseases previously easily cured.
I don’t understand what that guy wants the government to do. What are the regulations that he wants? It seems like he is just saying, look, we have a problem, let’s summon the government to rescue us!
The one thing I don’t understand is this. It has been well known for many years that drugs-resistant bacteria strains are always evolving. Just ask any medical student or anyone working in the pharmaceutical business. The main sources of these strains are, not surprisingly, hospitals. This is not due to carelessness or lack of sanitation: it’s simple math and evolution at work. Latest antibiotics designed specifically for hospital use are very expensive and loaded with side effects. It’s just part of the “game”.
But I understand very well that “someone” may use this as cover to make even more money than he already does by, say, having generic, not-IP protected antibiotic drugs (amoxicilin, streptomycin etc) banned so as to push his overpriced, potentially dangerous drugs. But to do this he needs the full muscle of the State as somebody else needed it to have Freon banned just as IP protection was running out or even yet another somebody is using it to ban “normal” filament lightbulbs to push those completely ridiculous “energy saving” bulbs.
so he’s essentially hoping that a global bureaucracy will be able to slow the evolution of harmful bacteria…or something.
anyway, abcnews did a story about “superbugs” yesterday (i think it was yesterday) and one of the things they seemed to revel in pointing out was that drug companies aren’t developing new antibiotics because there are bigger profits to be made selling drugs that the consumer will have buy over the course of their entire lifetime. heart medicines. diabetes drugs. those sorts of things.
the viewer is left to think that there is an impending superbug epidemic–much like there was an impending swine flu epidemic not too long ago–and that private enterprise is not responding to it because of the profit motive. basically, the standard “market failure” spiel.
with news coverage like that, it’s no wonder we have people who think that the best response to collective action problems like this is a medical version of the kyoto protocol.
I was horrified to learn that disgusting hygenic habits like that were “Normal” and even “Encouraged”(!!) in public schools because of some spiel of “Immunity” - Even though the common cold is always adapting and changing.