[vtsnowedin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tanada', 'I') predict that when the first child, probably a poor inner city kid, dies of antibiotic resistant Pertussis (whooping cough), it will set off a kind of alarm media firestorm like you have not yet seen in the USA. We like to believe childhood illnesses have been eliminated and are no longer a threat. It was only three generations ago, 75 years more or less, that a quarter of all children born in this country died before reaching adulthood from one disease or another.

The thing is, diseases like Pertussis that could be treated with antibiotics never had an effort put into immunization the same way the viral diseases like Small Pox and Rubella (German measles) did. The viral diseases got all the immunization work done precisely because they could not be treated with antibiotics that attack bacterial infections. The children who have been immunized will be safe from MMR (Mumps Measles and Rubella) and Varicella (chicken pox) and Polio, and even that rare bacteria that does have an immunization Scarlet Fever. But for all the other child hood bacterial diseases they will be defenseless, especially growing up in a culture that limits outdoor play and skinned knees as being too scary to contemplate.

Make no mistake, I do not want to see several million kids in this country catch bacterial diseases and die, but now that resistant bacteria have made it to our shores the time to develop vaccines is growing extremely short.

[Subjectivist]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('onlooker', 'I') am wondering if this information on this thread can be extrapolated to claim that this situation will make a world-wide Pandemic much more likely as more vulnerable sickly people will be around and also a particularly virulent bacteria can arise from all this dramatic evolution in resistant bacteria that can be the ONE to initiate a Pandemic?

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('vtsnowedin', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tanada', 'I') predict that when the first child, probably a poor inner city kid, dies of antibiotic resistant Pertussis (whooping cough), it will set off a kind of alarm media firestorm like you have not yet seen in the USA. We like to believe childhood illnesses have been eliminated and are no longer a threat. It was only three generations ago, 75 years more or less, that a quarter of all children born in this country died before reaching adulthood from one disease or another.

The thing is, diseases like Pertussis that could be treated with antibiotics never had an effort put into immunization the same way the viral diseases like Small Pox and Rubella (German measles) did. The viral diseases got all the immunization work done precisely because they could not be treated with antibiotics that attack bacterial infections. The children who have been immunized will be safe from MMR (Mumps Measles and Rubella) and Varicella (chicken pox) and Polio, and even that rare bacteria that does have an immunization Scarlet Fever. But for all the other child hood bacterial diseases they will be defenseless, especially growing up in a culture that limits outdoor play and skinned knees as being too scary to contemplate.

Make no mistake, I do not want to see several million kids in this country catch bacterial diseases and die, but now that resistant bacteria have made it to our shores the time to develop vaccines is growing extremely short.

[onlooker]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'S')peaking of pandemics, good old Black Death that cut the European population by between a third and half is caused by a bacteria, Yersinia Pestis. The biggest causes of mass transmission are crowded conditions with limited hygiene and prolific rat populations.

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('onlooker', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'S')peaking of pandemics, good old Black Death that cut the European population by between a third and half is caused by a bacteria, Yersinia Pestis. The biggest causes of mass transmission are crowded conditions with limited hygiene and prolific rat populations.

[onlooker]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tanada', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('onlooker', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'S')peaking of pandemics, good old Black Death that cut the European population by between a third and half is caused by a bacteria, Yersinia Pestis. The biggest causes of mass transmission are crowded conditions with limited hygiene and prolific rat populations.

[onlooker]

http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencen ... story.html
A 'slow catastrophe' unfolds as the golden age of antibiotics comes to an end

[Newfie]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'U')ntil very recently, few made the connection between antibiotic use in individual cases and the emergence of antibiotic resistance, said Dr. Susan Bleasdale, an infection-control expert at the University of Illinois in Chicago. Patients with earaches, sinus pressure and sore throats demanded antibiotics, and physicians tended to oblige.

[onlooker]

yeah, we certainly have gone along certain paths that can all be called suicidal. Makes one wonder about our species and our intelligence.

[dissident]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'T')he thread proposition is ridiculous. Antibiotic resistance is still confined to few hospital populations and limited impoverished areas without proper health codes or practices.

But in a related vein, asthma seems to be a chronic chlamydia pneumoniae-associated bacterial infection. Effectively treated with azithromycin.

[dolanbaker]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'h')ttp://www.bbc.com/news/health-36974348

The Amish community in the US has long been famous for shunning modern technology and preserving traditional ways of life, using horses for farming and for transport.

Now it appears that their closer contact with animals could have an unexpected benefit - preventing asthma in children.

A new study from the US compared the Amish with a similar community, the Hutterites, who use more modern farming methods.

Both groups have similar genetic ancestry and follow similar diets, but researchers found that childhood asthma rates differed strongly.

About 5% of Amish schoolchildren tested in the study had asthma compared with 21.3% of the Hutterite children.

The study in the New England Journal of Medicine suggested that children's immune systems in the Amish community were being bolstered by house dust that contained more microbes from farm animals.
Barns closer to homes

The findings echo other studies that have suggested that a lack of early exposure to microbes, caused by modern hygiene, increases the risk of allergy.

The dust found in Amish homes was "much richer in microbial products," the study said.

"Neither the Amish nor the Hutterites have dirty homes," said study co-author Carole Ober, professor and chairman of human genetics at the University of Chicago.

"Both are tidy. The Amish barns, however, are much closer to their homes. Their children run in and out of them, often barefoot, all day long. There's no obvious dirt in the Amish homes, no lapse of cleanliness. It's just in the air and in the dust."

Blood tests from 30 children from each community, aged seven to 14, showed that the Amish youngsters had more neutrophils - white blood cells crucial to fighting infections.

[dissident]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dissident', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'T')he thread proposition is ridiculous. Antibiotic resistance is still confined to few hospital populations and limited impoverished areas without proper health codes or practices.

But in a related vein, asthma seems to be a chronic chlamydia pneumoniae-associated bacterial infection. Effectively treated with azithromycin.

[onlooker]

Can I ask you guys if we are seeing now a genetic influence or basis to asthma and also allergies? I ask as my wife and I have a friend whose son was practically born with both asthma and allergies

[dissident]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('onlooker', 'C')an I ask you guys if we are seeing now a genetic influence or basis to asthma and also allergies? I ask as my wife and I have a friend whose son was practically born with both asthma and allergies

[onlooker]

Umm interesting it makes one wonder about something like GMO,s , my cursory reading indictates they are not safe at all. The larger point you stress is so relevant to the world we live in now. A corollary to this point is how can our bodies handle the massive amount of unnatural inorganic and organic substances we are being exposed to and ingesting. This is amounting to being slowly poisoned to Death.

[Newfie]

Dis,
Thanks for that post. My Wife comes across epigenetics occasionally in here professional reading regarding emotional disturbance. A fascinating aspect is that the change of state can pass to succeeding generations.

[Kylon]

Has anybody heard about bacteriophages? Basically viruses that infect and eat bacteria.

If safe ones could be developed, then they'd provide a cheap means of antibiotics as one application to the appropriate bacteria would rapidly proliferate and infect all of the bacteria of that type until that bacteria were dead.

They also could, in theory, mutate and evolve faster than bacteria due to greater numbers and a shorter life cycle. This in turn would make resistance to bacteriophages less likely to happen.

The downside is the bacteriophages, if not properly developed and screened so that they can't/won't infect humans might become another source of pandemic.

Just something to think about.

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Kylon', 'H')as anybody heard about bacteriophages? Basically viruses that infect and eat bacteria.

If safe ones could be developed, then they'd provide a cheap means of antibiotics as one application to the appropriate bacteria would rapidly proliferate and infect all of the bacteria of that type until that bacteria were dead.

They also could, in theory, mutate and evolve faster than bacteria due to greater numbers and a shorter life cycle. This in turn would make resistance to bacteriophages less likely to happen.

The downside is the bacteriophages, if not properly developed and screened so that they can't/won't infect humans might become another source of pandemic.

Just something to think about.