Scientists have engineered a self-destruct button in bacteria
▻https://massivesci.com/articles/bacteria-self-destruct-molecular-biology-dna-antibiotic-resistance
Sneaky molecular biology tricks bacteria into killing themselves, in place of antibiotics
Monthly Review | Superbugs in the #Anthropocene: A Profit-Driven Plague
▻https://monthlyreview.org/2019/06/01/superbugs-in-the-anthropocene
While I was writing this article, the press reported:
A maternity hospital in Romania shut down because thirty-nine newborns were infected by a drug-resistant superbug. Eleven staff members were found to be carriers.
In Gaza, the wounds of thousands of Palestinians shot by Israeli soldiers are infected with antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and the blockade prevents necessary medical supplies from reaching them.
In Pakistan in the past two years, over five thousand people have contracted a strain of typhoid fever that is resistant to all recommended antibiotics.
In an Indian hospital, a new strain of the common bacteria Klebsiella pneumoniae, described as both multidrug resistant and hypervirulent, killed more than half of the patients who contracted it.
Tests found that 56 percent of Staphylococcus bacteria in two Afghan hospitals are resistant to multiple antibiotics.
Les antibiotiques polluent désormais les rivières du monde entier
▻https://www.latribune.fr/entreprises-finance/industrie/energie-environnement/les-antibiotiques-polluent-les-rivieres-du-monde-entier-818590.html
Quatorze antibiotiques ont été retrouvés dans les rivières de 72 pays, d’après une étude britannique inédite révélée lundi 27 mai. Les concentrations d’antibiotiques trouvés dépassent jusqu’à 300 fois les niveaux « acceptables ». Un risque majeur puisque ce phénomène accentue le phénomène de résistance aux antibiotiques qui deviennent moins efficaces pour traiter certains symptômes.
Aucune n’est épargnée. Une étude présentée lundi 27 mai révèle que, de l’Europe à l’Asie en passant par l’Afrique, les concentrations d’antibiotiques relevées dans certaines rivières du monde dépassent largement les niveaux acceptables. La nouveauté de cette étude résulte du fait qu’il s’agit désormais d’un « problème mondial » car si, autrefois, les niveaux tolérés étaient le plus souvent dépassés en Asie et en Afrique - les sites les plus problématiques se trouvent au Bangladesh, Kenya, Ghana, Pakistan et Nigeria - l’Europe et l’Amérique ne sont plus en reste, note le communiqué de l’équipe de chercheurs de l’université britannique de York responsable de l’étude.
Les scientifiques ont ainsi analysé des prélèvements effectués sur 711 sites dans 72 pays sur six continents et ont détecté au moins un des 14 antibiotiques recherchés dans 65% des échantillons. Les chercheurs, qui présentaient leurs recherches lundi à un congrès à Helsinki, ont comparé ces prélèvements aux niveaux acceptables établis par le groupement d’industries pharmaceutiques AMR Industry Alliance, qui varient selon la substance.
Résultat, le métronidazole, utilisé contre les infections de la peau et de la bouche, est l’antibiotique qui dépasse le plus ce niveau acceptable, avec des concentrations allant jusqu’à 300 fois ce seuil sur un site au Bangladesh. Le niveau est également dépassé dans la Tamise. La ciprofloxacine est de son côté la substance qui dépasse le plus souvent le seuil de sûreté acceptable (sur 51 sites), tandis que le triméthoprime, utilisé dans le traitement des infections urinaires, est le plus fréquemment retrouvé.
Est-ce que c’est des antibiotiques qu’on prescrit aux humain·es ou aux non-humain·es ?
J’ai trouvé une liste des médicaments réservé aux humains et la métronidazole et la ciprofloxacine n’en font pas partie.
ANNEXEII -MEDICAMENTS HUMAINS CLASSES AIC NON AUTORISES EN MEDECINE VETERINAIREFAMILLE D’APPARTENANCE DE LA SUBSTANCENOM DE LA SUBSTANCECéphalosporinesdetroisièmeoudequatrièmegénérationCeftriaxoneCéfiximeCefpodoximeCéfotiamCéfotaximeCeftazidimeCéfépimeCefpiromeCeftobiproleAutrescéphalosporinesCeftarolineQuinolones de deuxième génération (fluoroquinolones)LévofloxacineLoméfloxacinePéfloxacineMoxifloxacineEnoxacinePénèmesMéropènèmeErtapénèmeDoripénemImipénème+inhibiteurd’enzymeAcidesphosphoniquesFosfomycineGlycopeptidesVancomycineTeicoplanineTélavancineDalbavancineOritavancineGlycylcyclinesTigécyclineLipopeptidesDaptomycineMonobactamsAztréonamOxazolidonesCyclosérineLinézolideTédizolideRiminofenazinesClofaziminePénicillinesPipéracillinePipéracilline+inhibiteurd’enzymeTémocillineTircacillineTircacilline+inhibiteurd’enzymeSulfonesDapsoneAntituberculeux/antilépreuxRifampicineRifabutineCapréomycineIsoniazideEthionamidePyrazinamideEthambutolClofazimineDapsone+ferreuxoxalate
▻http://www.ordre.pharmacien.fr/content/download/346633/1695541/version/2/file/Fiches-pratiques_pharmacie-v%C3%A9t%C3%A9rinaire.pdf
Le site de l’équipe qui a coordonné les travaux, Université d’York
Antibiotics found in some of the world’s rivers exceed ‘safe’ levels, global study finds - News and events, The University of York
▻https://www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/2019/research/antibiotics-found-in-some-of-worlds-rivers
▻https://www.york.ac.uk/media/news-and-events/pressreleases/2019/Global rivers feat.jpg
Concentrations of antibiotics found in some of the world’s rivers exceed ‘safe’ levels by up to 300 times, the first ever global study has discovered.
[…]
Researchers looked for 14 commonly used antibiotics in rivers in 72 countries across six continents and found antibiotics at 65% of the sites monitored.
Metronidazole, which is used to treat bacterial infections including skin and mouth infections, exceeded safe levels by the biggest margin, with concentrations at one site in Bangladesh 300 times greater than the ‘safe’ level.
In the River Thames and one of its tributaries in London, the researchers detected a maximum total antibiotic concentration of 233 nanograms per litre (ng/l), whereas in Bangladesh the concentration was 170 times higher.
Trimethoprim
The most prevalent antibiotic was trimethoprim, which was detected at 307 of the 711 sites tested and is primarily used to treat urinary tract infections.
The research team compared the monitoring data with ‘safe’ levels recently established by the AMR Industry Alliance which, depending on the antibiotic, range from 20-32,000 ng/l.
Ciproflaxacin, which is used to treat a number of bacterial infections, was the compound that most frequently exceeded safe levels, surpassing the safety threshold in 51 places.
Global problem
The team said that the ‘safe’ limits were most frequently exceeded in Asia and Africa, but sites in Europe, North America and South America also had levels of concern showing that antibiotic contamination was a “global problem.”
Sites where antibiotics exceeded ‘safe’ levels by the greatest degree were in Bangladesh, Kenya, Ghana, Pakistan and Nigeria, while a site in Austria was ranked the highest of the European sites monitored.
The study revealed that high-risk sites were typically adjacent to wastewater treatment systems, waste or sewage dumps and in some areas of political turmoil, including the Israeli and Palestinian border.
Monitoring
The project, which was led by the University of York, was a huge logistical challenge – with 92 sampling kits flown out to partners across the world who were asked to take samples from locations along their local river system.
Samples were then frozen and couriered back to the University of York for testing. Some of the world’s most iconic rivers were sampled, including the Chao Phraya, Danube, Mekong, Seine, Thames, Tiber and Tigris.
Le résumé de la présentation à Helsinki, le 28 mai
Tracks & Sessions – SETAC Helsinki
▻https://helsinki.setac.org/programme/scientific-programme/trackssessions
3.12 - New Insights into Chemical Exposures over Multiple Spatial and Temporal Scales
Co-chairs: Alistair Boxall, Charlotte Wagner, Rainer Lohmann, Jason Snape
Tuesday May 28, 2019 | 13:55–15:30 | Session Room 204/205
Current methods used to assess chemical exposures are insufficient to accurately establish the impacts of chemicals on human and ecosystem health. For example, exposure assessment often involves the use of averaged concentrations, assumes constant exposure of an organism and focuses on select geographical regions, individual chemicals and single environmental compartments. A combination of tools in environmental scientists’ toolbox can be used to address these limitations.
This session will therefore include presentations on experimental and modelling approaches to better understand environmental exposures of humans and other organisms to chemicals over space and time, and the drivers of such exposures. We welcome submissions from the following areas:
1) Applications of novel approaches such as source apportionment, wireless sensor networks, drones and citizen science to generate and understand exposure data over multiple spatial and temporal scales,
2) Advancements in assessing exposures to multiple chemicals and from different land-use types, as well as the impact of an organism’s differing interactions with its environment, and
3) Quantification of chemical exposures at regional, continental and global geographical scales.
This session aims at advancing efforts to combine models and measurement to better assess environmental distribution and exposure to chemical contaminants, reducing ubiquitous exposures and risks to public and environmental health.
Long-Term Use of Antibiotics Tied to Heart Risks - The New York Times
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/24/well/live/long-term-use-of-antibiotics-tied-to-heart-risks.html
Using antibiotics for two months or longer may be linked to an increase in a woman’s risk for cardiovascular disease.
The finding, published in the European Heart Journal, applied to women who used the drugs when they were 40 and older.
Researchers used data on 36,429 women free of cardiovascular disease at the start of the study who were participating in a continuing long-term health study. Beginning in 2004, the women reported their use of antibiotics.
Over seven years of follow-up, there were 1,056 cases of cardiovascular disease. Compared with women who never used them, women who used antibiotics for two months or longer during their 40s and 50s had a 28 percent increased risk for cardiovascular disease, and women over 60 who used them that long had a 32 percent increased risk.
The study controlled for family history of heart attack, body mass index, hypertension, the use of other medications and other factors.
“It’s difficult to distinguish the effect of the antibiotic on cardiovascular disease from the effect of the disease for which the antibiotic was taken, and that’s a potential limitation of the study,” said the lead author, Lu Qi, now a professor of epidemiology at Tulane University. “But that we are seeing the effect of the disease instead of the antibiotic is unlikely, because we see the effect in so many different diseases where antibiotics are used.”
#Candida_Auris: The Fungus Nobody Wants to Talk About - The New York Times
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/08/health/candida-auris-hospitals.html
Times Insider explains who we are and what we do, and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.
In 30 years, I’ve never faced so tough a reporting challenge — and one so unexpected. Who wouldn’t want to talk about a fungus?
Last year, I began spade work on a series of articles about drug-resistant microbes: bacteria and fungi that have developed the ability to evade common medicines that we have used for decades.
Early on, I stumbled onto a compelling example. A woman in Alaska named Sari Bailey woke up one morning with green and yellow gunk coming out of her ear. Her doctor told her it was an ear infection and prescribed antibiotics. They didn’t work. Turns out she had a drug-resistant infection that rooted on her mastoid bone, just behind the ear. It nearly killed her and required multiple surgeries to clear.
Le champignon Candida auris est une menace maîtrisable - Sciences et Avenir
▻https://www.sciencesetavenir.fr/sante/le-champignon-candida-auris-est-une-menace-maitrisable_132898
« Une infection mystérieuse recouvre le monde entier dans un climat de secret », titrait le New York Times le 6 avril 2019. À l’origine de cet intitulé angoissant, il y a l’émergence du champignon Candida auris, qui a causé plusieurs épidémies et des morts dans des hôpitaux répartis sur le globe. Mais si ce nouveau germe est effectivement résistant à plusieurs traitements et difficile à éliminer des surfaces contaminées, il ne constitue cependant pas une menace majeure pour l’humanité.
[…]
ANTIBIORESISTANCE. S’il ne faut pas minimiser l’importance de ces épidémies de levures, surtout pour les personnes fragiles, le danger est cependant moindre que du côté des bactéries multirésistantes. Selon l’Organisation Mondiale de la Santé (OMS), en l’absence de politique adaptée, 10 millions de personnes dans le monde pourraient mourir de ces infections en 2050, éclipsant les huit millions qui devraient mourir du cancer cette année.
A Mysterious Infection, Spanning the Globe in a Climate of Secrecy - The New York Times
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/06/health/drug-resistant-candida-auris.html
Un effet méconnu de l’utilisation des #pesticides (qui s’additionne à l’utilisation intempestive des #antibiotiques) dans l’#agriculture : le développement de #mycoses résistantes aux antimycosiques chez l’être humain.
Antibiotics and antifungals are both essential to combat infections in people, but antibiotics are also used widely to prevent disease in farm animals, and antifungals are also applied to prevent agricultural plants from rotting. Some scientists cite evidence that rampant use of fungicides on crops is contributing to the surge in drug-resistant fungi infecting humans.
#effondrement #collapsologie #catastrophe #fin_du_monde #it_has_begun #Anthropocène #capitalocène
on l’ajoute à la troisième compilation :
►https://seenthis.net/messages/680147
Article sur le sujet en français et antérieur
►https://seenthis.net/messages/722711
ICMR’s tie-up with Pfizer on antibiotic abuse raises eyebrows | India News - Times of India
▻https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/icmrs-tie-up-with-pfizer-on-antibiotic-abuse-raises-eyebrows/articleshow/67985211.cms
A collaboration between the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) and Pfizer, a drug multinational that sells antibiotics, for the council’s Anti-Microbial Resistance (AMR) project has sparked widespread criticism and charges of conflict of interest.
#pharma #conflit_d'intérêt “#partenariat_public_privé” #Inde
Medieval medical books could hold the recipe for new antibiotics – Alternet.org
▻https://www.alternet.org/2019/01/medieval-medical-books-could-hold-the-recipe-for-new-antibiotics
I am part of the Ancientbiotics team, a group of medievalists, microbiologists, medicinal chemists, parasitologists, pharmacists and data scientists from multiple universities and countries. We believe that answers to the antibiotic crisis could be found in medical history. With the aid of modern technologies, we hope to unravel how premodern physicians treated infection and whether their cures really worked.
To that end, we are compiling a database of medieval medical recipes. By revealing patterns in medieval medical practice, our database could inform future laboratory research into the materials used to treat infection in the past. To our knowledge, this is the first attempt to create a medieval medicines database in this manner and for this purpose.
Premodern European medicine has been poorly studied for its clinical potential, compared with traditional pharmacopeias of other parts of the world. Our research also raises questions about medieval medical practitioners. Today, the word “medieval” is used as a derogatory term, indicating cruel behavior, ignorance or backwards thinking. This perpetuates the myth that the period is unworthy of study.
During our eyesalve study, chemist Tu Youyou was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for her discovery of a new therapy for malaria after searching over 2,000 recipes from ancient Chinese literature on herbal medicine. Is another “silver bullet” for microbial infection hidden within medieval European medical literature?
Certainly, there are medieval superstitions and treatments that we would not replicate today, such as purging a patient’s body of pathogenic humors. However, our work suggests that there could be a methodology behind the medicines of medieval practitioners, informed by a long tradition of observation and experimentation.
Dodging antibiotic resistance by curbing bacterial evolution
▻https://phys.org/news/2018-11-dodging-antibiotic-resistance-curbing-bacterial.html
Combining antibiotics with an anti-evolution drug that reduces the rate of mutations in the pathogen might be one strategy against the development of antimicrobial resistance. Credit: Merrikh Lab/UW Medicine
A game of chicken: how Indian poultry farming is creating global #superbugs
On a farm in the Rangareddy district in India, near the southern metropolis of Hyderabad, a clutch of chicks has just been delivered. Some 5,000 birds peck at one another, loitering around a warehouse which will become cramped as they grow. Outside the shed, stacks of bags contain the feed they will eat during their five-week-long lives. Some of them gulp down a yellow liquid from plastic containers - a sugar water fed to the chicks from the moment they arrive, the farm caretaker explains. “Now the supervisor will come,” she adds, “and we will have to start with whatever medicines he would ask us to give the chicks.”
The medicines are antibiotics, given to the birds to protect them against diseases or to make them gain weight faster so more can be grown each year at greater profit. One drug typically given this way is colistin. Doctors call it the “last hope” antibiotic because it is used to treat patients who are critically ill with infections which have become resistant to nearly all other drugs. The World Health Organisation has called for the use of such antibiotics, which it calls “critically important to human medicine”, to be restricted in animals and banned as growth promoters. Their continued use in farming increases the chance bacteria will develop resistance to them, leaving them useless when treating patients.
Yet thousands of tonnes of veterinary colistin was shipped to countries including Vietnam, India, South Korea and Russia in 2016, the Bureau can reveal. In India at least five animal pharmaceutical companies are openly advertising products containing colistin as growth promoters.
One of these companies, Venky’s, is also a major poultry producer. Apart from selling animal medicines and creating its own chicken meals, it also supplies meat directly and indirectly to fast food chains in India such as KFC, McDonald’s, Pizza Hut and Dominos.
▻https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2018-01-30/a-game-of-chicken-how-indian-poultry-farming-is-creating-glob
#inde #antibiotiques #santé
How Tuberculosis Shaped Victorian Fashion | Science | Smithsonian
►https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-tuberculosis-shaped-victorian-fashion-180959029
:focal(381x190:382x191)/https://public-media.smithsonianmag.com/filer/b8/69/b869261f-a697-49ad-810a-7e551b5e9b77/1888_petersons_magazine_fashion_plate.jpg)
By the mid-1800s, tuberculosis had reached epidemic levels in Europe and the United States. The disease, now known to be infectious, attacks the lungs and damages other organs. Before the advent of antibiotics, its victims slowly wasted away, becoming pale and thin before finally dying of what was then known as consumption.
The Victorians romanticized the disease and the effects it caused in the gradual build to death. For decades, many beauty standards emulated or highlighted these effects. And as scientists gained greater understanding of the disease and how it was spread, the disease continued to keep its hold on fashion.
“Between 1780 and 1850, there is an increasing aestheticization of tuberculosis that becomes entwined with feminine beauty,” says Carolyn Day, an assistant professor of history at Furman University in South Carolina and author of the forthcoming book Consumptive Chic: A History of Fashion, Beauty and Disease, which explores how tuberculosis impacted early 19th century British fashion and perceptions of beauty.
During that time, consumption was thought to be caused by hereditary susceptibility and miasmas, or “bad airs,” in the environment. Among the upper class, one of the ways people judged a woman’s predisposition to tuberculosis was by her attractiveness, Days says. “That’s because tuberculosis enhances those things that are already established as beautiful in women,” she explains, such as the thinness and pale skin that result from weight loss and the lack of appetite caused by the disease.
The 1909 book Tuberculosis: A Treatise by American Authors on Its Etiology, Pathology, Frequency, Semeiology, Diagnosis, Prognosis, Prevention, and Treatment confirms this notion, with the authors noting: “A considerable number of patients have, and have had for years previous to their sickness, a delicate, transparent skin, as well as fine, silky hair.” Sparkling or dilated eyes, rosy cheeks and red lips were also common in tuberculosis patients—characteristics now known to be caused by frequent low-grade fever.
“We also begin to see elements in fashion that either highlight symptoms of the disease or physically emulate the illness,” Day says. The height of this so-called consumptive chic came in the mid-1800s, when fashionable pointed corsets showed off low, waifish waists and voluminous skirts further emphasized women’s narrow middles. Middle- and upper-class women also attempted to emulate the consumptive appearance by using makeup to lighten their skin, redden their lips and color their cheeks pink.
Opinion | We Know How to Conquer Tuberculosis - The New York Times
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/26/opinion/we-know-how-to-conquer-tuberculosis.html
And so, tuberculosis remains the world’s leading infectious disease killer, by far. It infects some 10 million people around the world every year, killing roughly 1.5 million. That’s some 4,000 deaths per day. By comparison, Ebola killed four people in 2017. America’s opioid epidemic kills about 115 people a day.
Still, tuberculosis is rarely the stuff of headlines. It’s ancient. It normally affects only the poorest people in the poorest countries. And when it does spread through wealthier areas, it’s generally curable with antibiotics. But a contingent of doctors, scientists and public health officials have spent the past two decades battling a global epidemic of the disease. And on Wednesday, they got their first hearing at the United Nations General Assembly. In a high-level meeting exclusively about tuberculosis control, those experts called on world leaders to devote more attention and far more resources to the disease. Both are urgently needed. Tuberculosis receives significantly less funding than H.I.V. or malaria, even though TB kills more people each year than both of those diseases combined. The World Health Organization estimates a $3.5 billion funding shortfall for TB control efforts, and says that gap could double in five years.
But policymakers, industry leaders and doctors on the front lines might also consider a change in strategy: Treat tuberculosis outbreaks in poor countries the same way they are treated in rich ones. That is, don’t just treat those who are sick; find and test their household members, neighbors, classmates and colleagues — and then treat the ones who test positive. Give them medications to kill the bacteria before they develop symptoms and before they pass the bacteria on, through their own coughing, to the next victim.
It’s not a ’Hamas march’ in Gaza. It’s tens of thousands willing to die - Palestinians - Haaretz.com
Amira Hass May 15, 2018 9:53 AM
▻https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/palestinians/.premium-to-call-gaza-protests-hamas-march-understates-their-significance-1
“ The Israeli army’s characterization of the demonstrations diminishes their gravity, but also unwittingly cast Hamas as a responsible, sophisticated political organization
We’re pleased our Hamas brethren understood that the proper way was through a popular, unarmed struggle,” Fatah representatives have said on several occasions recently regarding the Gaza March of Return. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said something similar during his address to the Palestinian National Council last week.
This expressed both cynicism and envy. Cynicism because Fatah’s official stance is that the armed struggle led by Hamas has harmed the Palestinian cause in general and the Gaza Strip in particular. And envy because the implication, which the Israeli army’s statements have reinforced, is that a call from Hamas is enough to get tens of thousands of unarmed demonstrators to face Israeli snipers along the border.
In contrast, calls by Fatah and the PLO in the West Bank, including Jerusalem, don’t bring more than a few thousand people to the streets and flash points with the police and the army. It happened again Monday, when the U.S. Embassy moved to Jerusalem. The number of Palestinian protesters in Gaza was far greater than the number in the West Bank.
The decisions on the March of Return events was made jointly by all the groups in Gaza, including Fatah. But the most organized group — the one that can work out the required logistics, equip the “return camps” (points of assembly and activity that were set up a few hundred meters from the Gaza border), control the information, maintain contact with the demonstrators and declare a general strike to protest the embassy move — is Hamas. Even a Fatah member sadly admitted this to Haaretz.
This doesn’t mean that all the demonstrators are Hamas supporters or fans of the movement who are obeying its orders. Not at all. The demonstrators come from all sectors of the population, people who identify politically and those who don’t.
“Whoever is afraid stays home, because the army shoots at everyone. The crazy ones are those who go close to the border, and they are from all the organizations or from none of them,” said a participant in the demonstration.
The army’s claims to journalists that this is a “Hamas march” are diminishing the weight of these events and the significance of tens of thousands of Gazans who are willing to get hurt, while ironically strengthening Hamas’ status as a responsible political organization that knows how to change the tactics of its struggle, while also knowing how to play down its role.
On Monday, with the killing of no fewer than 53 Gaza residents as of 7 P.M., there was no place for cynicism or envy. Abbas declared a period of mourning and ordered flags lowered for three days, along with a general strike Tuesday. This is the same Abbas who was planning a series of economic sanctions against the Strip in another attempt to quash Hamas.
The residents of the Gaza Strip, with their dead and wounded, are influencing internal Palestinian politics, whether they know it or not, whether intentionally or not. No one would dare impose such sanctions now. Time will tell whether anyone will come to the conclusion that if Israel is killing so many during unarmed demonstrations, they might as well return to individual armed attacks — as revenge or as a tactic that will lead to fewer Palestinian victims.
In the early hours of Monday morning, army bulldozers entered the Gaza Strip and leveled the sand banks built by Palestinians to protect them from snipers, according to fieldworkers from the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights.
At around 6:30 A.M., the army also fired at tents in the return camps, and several of the tents went up in flames. Some of the burned tents were used by first-aid teams, Al Mezan reported.
The Samaa news website reported that police dogs were sent into the return camps and that the army sprayed “skunk” water in the border area. The frantic summons of senior Hamas figures in the Gaza Strip to meet with Egyptian intelligence in Cairo was understood even before it was reported that the Egyptians passed on threatening Israeli messages to Ismail Haniyeh and Khalil al-Hayya, deputy to the Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip, Yahya Sinwar.
Everyone in the Gaza Strip knows the hospitals are way over capacity and that the medical teams are unable to treat all the wounded. Al Mezan reported on a medical delegation that was supposed to arrive from the West Bank but was prevented from entering by Israel.
Everyone knows that wounded people who were operated on are being discharged too soon and that there’s a shortage of essential drugs for the wounded, including antibiotics. Even when there are drugs, many of the wounded cannot pay even the minimum required to obtain them, and so they return a few days later to the doctor with an infection. This is all based on reports from international medical sources.
All the signals, warnings, the many fatalities in the past few weeks and the disturbing reports from the hospitals did not deter the tens of thousands of demonstrators Monday. The right of return and opposition to the relocation of the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem are worthy goals or reasons, acceptable to all.
But not to the extent that masses of West Bank and East Jerusalem residents would join their brothers in the Gaza Strip. There, the most desirable goal for which to demonstrate is the obvious demand and the easiest to implement immediately — to give Gazans back their freedom of movement and their right to connect with the outside world, especially with members of their own people beyond the barbed wire surrounding them. This is a demand of the “ordinary” public and not a private Hamas matter, since both its leaders and rank-and-file members know very well that once they enter the Erez crossing between Israel and the Strip, they will be arrested.
#marcheduretour
Inside the secret U.S. stockpile meant to save us all in a bioterror attack - The Washington Post
▻https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/04/24/inside-the-secret-u-s-stockpile-meant-to-save-us-all-in-a-bioterror-
This is quite a different kind of warehouse. It and several others across the country are part of the $7 billion Strategic National Stockpile, a government repository of drugs and supplies ready for deployment in a bioterrorism or nuclear attack, or against an infectious disease outbreak — of either a known pathogen or some unknown threat with pandemic potential, which global health officials dub “Disease X” — or other major public health emergency. There are antibiotics, including the powerful medication Ciprofloxacin, vaccines for smallpox and anthrax and antivirals for a deadly influenza pandemic.
Opinion | Will the Next Superbug Come From Yemen? - The New York Times
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/14/opinion/sunday/yemen-antibiotic-resistance-disease.html
Before the war, #Yemen had a functioning, if fragile, health system. The war destroyed it, along with the country’s water and sanitation infrastructure. Many small children are not even getting routine vaccinations. Nearly 18 million people are hungry, with many close to famine levels. By conservative estimates, 10,000 civilians have been killed, with 52,000 more wounded — fertile ground for drug resistance.
Antibiotic consumption was already very high in the region. A 2014 study found a prevalence of nonprescription antibiotic use by 48 percent of the population in Saudi Arabia and 78 percent in Yemen. Syria was a major producer of antibiotics, both for itself and for export.
It’s a recipe for catastrophe: a struggling health system where antibiotics remain widely available with little oversight, combined with an overwhelming number of wounded in hospitals and weak hygiene and infection-control practices. Doctors in Yemen, struggling to treat the rush of patients, often use broad-spectrum antibiotics on even simple infections. “This creates a new generation of multidrug-resistant bacteria,” Dr. Mansoor said, and inadvertently sets the stage for a public health meltdown.
BBC - Future - The hidden healing power of sugar
▻http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20180328-how-sugar-could-help-heal-wounds
Doctors are finding one way that sugar can benefit your health: it may help heal wounds resistant to antibiotics.
By Clara Wiggins
30 March 2018
As a child growing up in poverty in the rural Eastern Highlands of Zimbabwe, Moses Murandu was used to having salt literally rubbed in his wounds when he fell and cut himself. On lucky days, though, his father had enough money to buy something which stung the boy much less than salt: sugar.
#sucre #santé #médicaments #et je soupçonne un peu de lobbying derrièr ce papier donc #the_corporation
#Big_Pharma fails to disclose antibiotic waste leaked from factories
Many of the world’s leading drug manufacturers may be leaking antibiotics from their factories into the environment according to a new report from a drug industry watchdog. This risks creating more superbugs.
The report surveyed household-name pharmaceutical giants like #GSK, #Novartis and #Roche as well as generic companies which make non-branded products for the NHS and other health systems.
None of the 18 companies polled would reveal how much antibiotic discharge they release into the environment, according to the independent report from the not-for-profit body, the Access to Medicine Foundation. Only eight said they set limits for how much could be released in wastewater.
Only one disclosed the name of its suppliers – a move which is seen as important as it would make companies accountable for their environmental practices.
How Dirt Could Save Us From Antibiotic-Resistant Superbugs | WIRED
▻https://www.wired.com/story/how-dirt-could-save-humanity-from-an-infectious-apocalypse
Brady is creating drugs from dirt. He’s certain that the world’s topsoils contain incredible, practically inexhaustible reservoirs of undiscovered antibiotics, the chemical weapons bacteria use to fend off other microorganisms. He’s not alone in this thinking, but the problem is that the vast majority of bacteria cannot be grown in the lab—a necessary step in cultivating antibiotics.
Brady has found a way around this roadblock, which opens the door to all those untapped bacteria that live in dirt. By cloning DNA out of a kind of bacteria-laden mud soup, and reinstalling these foreign gene sequences into microorganisms that can be grown in the lab, he’s devised a method for discovering antibiotics that could soon treat infectious diseases and fight drug-resistant superbugs. In early 2016, Brady launched a company called Lodo Therapeutics (lodo means mud in Spanish and Portuguese) to scale up production and ultimately help humanity outrun infectious diseases nipping at our heels. Some colleagues call his approach “a walk in the park.” Indeed, his lab recently dispatched two groups of student volunteers to collect bags full of dirt at 275 locations around New York City.
New report says completing a course of antibiotics even after symptoms abate is overrated
▻http://www.news-medical.net/news/20170726/New-report-says-completing-a-course-of-antibiotics-even-after-symptoms
Vers une remise en cause de la stratégie d’utilisation des antibiotiques ?
Scientists have explained the mechanism of development of antibiotic resistance.
• Target selected resistance - When a microbe multiplies within the host it leads to infection. These microbes may undergo genetic mutations that may make them deadlier and resistant to antibiotics. These genetic mutations are seen to be accelerated in case of inadequate dosing of the antibiotics or when a single drug is used to kill the microbe. Tuberculosis, HIV, typhoid, malaria and gonorrhoea are notable infections that develop resistance in this manner.
• Collateral selection – There are several bacteria types that live harmlessly within the gut or other mucus membranes. During antibiotic treatment for other infections, these harmless bacteria genetically mutate to become resistant and cause infections. Their mutations are passed on to other strains of the bacteria leading to antibiotic resistance. Organisms that show this type of resistance include Methicillin Resistant Staph aureus (MRSA).
Researchers have seen that most of the antibiotic resistance now does not come from the first type of resistance selection or target selection. This means the second type is more common. This also means that longer the duration of the antibiotic use, longer the time the harmless bacteria in the gut gets to develop resistance and pass it on to the other strains and species of bacteria. These harmless bacteria are called “opportunistic pathogens” which means they become dangerous only at certain times i.e. antibiotic use, immunosuppression etc.
In this new work, researchers have suggested optimum usage of antibiotics as the key to prevent resistance.
L’article original (accessible)
The antibiotic course has had its day | The BMJ
▻http://www.bmj.com/content/358/bmj.j3418
Key messages
• Patients are put at unnecessary risk from antibiotic resistance when treatment is given for longer than necessary, not when it is stopped early
• For common bacterial infections no evidence exists that stopping antibiotic treatment early increases a patient’s risk of resistant infection
• Antibiotics are a precious and finite natural resource which should be conserved by tailoring treatment duration for individual patients
• Clinical trials are required to determine the most effective strategies for optimising duration of antibiotic treatment
Why you really should take your full course of antibiotics
▻https://theconversation.com/why-you-really-should-take-your-full-course-of-antibiotics-81704
An article in the BMJ argues that contrary to long-given advice, it is unnecessary to make sure you finish all the antibiotics you’re prescribed. The article sparked debate among experts and more worryingly widespread confusion among the general public, who are still getting to grips with what they need to do to stem antibiotic resistance. Even my colleagues at the university this morning were asking me whether or not to finish their course of antibiotics.
As an active campaigner for action to halt the progression of antibiotic resistance and a firm promoter of the “finish the course” message, the article and that the scale of coverage concerns me greatly.
[…]
Only time will tell as to what the impact of suggesting people stop taking antibiotics when they feel better will be. I believe this has undone a lot of the hard work scientists like myself have invested in improving antibiotic awareness and personal responsibility surrounding antibiotic administration. Nevertheless, we all need to follow the advice of our clinicians who will no doubt hold out for some more conclusive scientific evidence before changing their advice surrounding antibiotics.
Scientists are dusting off a long-forgotten weapon to cope with modern bacteria
▻https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/scientists-are-dusting-off-a-long-forgotten-weapon-to-cope-with-modern-bacteria/2017/06/30/3476ced0-4aeb-11e7-9669-250d0b15f83b_story.html
Antibiotics typically kill all bacteria, including beneficial ones. But phages are bacteria-specific, attacking only a single species of bacteria. Phages enter bacterial cells, where they replicate, causing the cells to rupture. This releases additional phages into the body, making the treatment more potent.
The key is matching the right phage to the right bacterium. Scientists say it is likely that every bacterium has a phage — or many phages — that can kill it.
This involves taking a patient’s multidrug-resistant bacterium, growing it on a “lawn” of agar (a jellylike substance used to culture microorganisms) with an overlay of phages, then looking for “holes” in the lawn where the phages have killed the bacteria. Once identified, the phages are plucked, grown in large batches and purified. Depending on the site of the infection, they are then delivered orally, topically, intravenously or into the respiratory tract by aerosol administration.
Big Pharma’s Pollution Is Creating Deadly Superbugs While the World Looks the Other Way | Alternet
▻http://www.alternet.org/environment/pollution-creating-deadly-superbugs
Voyage au bout de l’enfer : quand la pharmacie devient une industrie polluante, le danger finit par devenir plus grand à terme que les avantage maintenant.
Industrial pollution from Indian pharmaceutical companies making medicines for nearly all the world’s major drug companies is fuelling the creation of deadly superbugs, suggests new research. Global health authorities have no regulations in place to stop this happening.
A major study published today in the prestigious scientific journal Infection found “excessively high” levels of antibiotic and antifungal drug residue in water sources in and around a major drug production hub in the Indian city of Hyderabad, as well as high levels of bacteria and fungi resistant to those drugs. Scientists told the Bureau the quantities found meant they believe the drug residues must have originated from pharmaceutical factories.
The presence of drug residues in the natural environment allows the microbes living there to build up resistance to the ingredients in the medicines that are supposed to kill them, turning them into what we call superbugs. The resistant microbes travel easily and have multiplied in huge numbers all over the world, creating a grave public health emergency that is already thought to kill hundreds of thousands of people a year.
A group of scientists based at the University of Leipzig worked with German journalists to take an in-depth look at pharmaceutical pollution in Hyderabad, where 50% of India’s drug exports are produced. A fifth of the world’s generic drugs are produced in India, with factories based in Hyderabad supplying Big Pharma and public health authorities like World Health Organisation with millions of tons of antibiotics and antifungals each year.
The researchers tested 28 water samples in and around the Patancheru-Bollaram Industrial zone on the outskirts of the city, where more than than 30 drug manufacturing companies supplying nearly all the world’s major drug companies are based. Thousands of tons of pharmaceutical waste are produced by the factories each day, the paper says.
#pharmacie #pollution #résistance_aux_antibiotiques #antibiotiques #génériques
Dental plaque DNA shows Neandertals used ’aspirin’
▻https://phys.org/news/2017-03-dental-plaque-dna-neandertals-aspirin.html
“One of the most surprising finds, however, was in a Neandertal from El Sidrón, who suffered from a dental abscess visible on the jawbone. The plaque showed that he also had an intestinal parasite that causes acute diarrhoea, so clearly he was quite sick. He was eating poplar, which contains the pain killer salicylic acid (the active ingredient of aspirin), and we could also detect a natural antibiotic mould (Penicillium) not seen in the other specimens.”
"Apparently, Neandertals possessed a good knowledge of medicinal plants and their various anti-inflammatory and pain-relieving properties, and seem to be self-medicating. The use of antibiotics would be very surprising, as this is more than 40,000 years before we developed penicillin. Certainly our findings contrast markedly with the rather simplistic view of our ancient relatives in popular imagination."
Ils nous ont même mis un bout de rhinocéros laineux au congélateur…
Le premier bébé rhinocéros laineux retrouvé en Sibérie
▻http://www.huffingtonpost.fr/2015/02/26/bebe-rihnoceros-siberie-scientifiques-decouverte-magnifique-_n_675788
Why Trendy Nanosilver Products Are Hazardous to Your Health and the Environment | Alternet
▻http://www.alternet.org/environment/why-trendy-nanosilver-products-are-hazardous-your-health-and-environment
Due to these developments, nanosilver has begun to appear in an increasing number of products. There are now over 400 products on the market that employ nanosilver technology, many of which involve direct contact with our bodies and our food, including clothing, sheets, blankets, cosmetics, soaps, nasal spray, hair straightener, ink, air purifiers, vegetable and fruit cleaners, cutting boards, vacuum cleaners and in Korea, even toothpaste.
Sounds too good to be true, right? It may be. Because the very thing that makes nanoparticles so effective—their size—is also what makes them a potential hazard. We still don’t fully know how nanosilver behaves when it’s released into the environment or absorbed by our bodies. A growing number of studies show that products containing nanosilver can shed these particles, which subsequently end up in wastewater or our bloodstream.
These rogue nanosilver particles pose a number of potential problems. As we’ve established, silver nanoparticles are highly toxic to bacteria and fungi. This is not good news for soil. Quoted in an article on Scientific American, Ben Colman, a research scientist at Duke University who conducted a study into the effects of nanosilver on soil systems, explained how these particles, “significantly altered [..] plant growth, microbial biomass and microbial activity.”
On the flipside, nanosilver toxicity poses a different threat to our own biology. The Center for Food Safety’s senior policy analyst Jaydee Hanson, quoted in an article on Civil Eats, noted that over time, overexposure to nanosilver, “may lead to bacteria becoming increasingly resistant to antibiotics.” A study conducted by the Norwegian Institute of Public Health further found that silver nanoparticles had a “toxic effect on cells, suppressing cellular growth and multiplication and causing cell death depending on concentrations and duration of exposure.”
In 2014, the European Commission and its non-food Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks published findings under the comprehensive title, “Final Opinion on Nanosilver: safety, health and environmental effects and role in antimicrobial resistance.” SCENIHR found that in order to truly ascertain any potential hazards, more data was “needed to better understand bacterial response...to silver nanoparticles exposure.”
CRE #Superbug Infection May Spread Quickly And Without Showing Symptoms
▻http://www.inquisitr.com/3899504/cre-superbug-infection-may-spread-quickly-and-without-showing-symptoms
Known as carbapenem-resistant enterobacteriaceae (CRE), this group of superbugs is spreading faster and more widely than previously predicted. While the bacteria infects just over 9,000 and kills about 600 people annually in the U.S., a new study revealed that they may be infecting many more without showing any symptoms.
These particular superbugs are especially dangerous to humans. CREs have a unique ability to resist any currently available antibiotics, making treatment very difficult for health practitioners. Even one of the strongest medicines, named carbapenem, doesn’t seem to deter these “nightmare” superbugs. This powerful antibiotic is typically only used as a last resort for the toughest cases
[…]
The team discovered eight species of CRE, each with different genetic backgrounds and resistance genes. With such diversity, the researchers concluded the antibiotic-resistant superbugs are spreading faster and more easily than previously thought.
Alarmingly, the study also found that some species did not have the necessary genes to resist carbapenems, but were able to survive, nonetheless. The bacteria were able to find a way to resist being eliminated when exposed to the powerful antibiotic and researchers have no idea how.