So Chinese farmers have doomed us for now
The scary thing is that there are no new antibiotics anywhere near ready for deployment. These things take decades to develop
[QUOTE=Firetornado;49947250]Yeah but Nanobots are becoming a thing.[/QUOTE]
Ahaha. You do realize they'd need to be disinfected first?
[editline]16th March 2016[/editline]
[QUOTE=Trumple;49947730]So Chinese farmers have doomed us for now
The scary thing is that there are no new antibiotics anywhere near ready for deployment. These things take decades to develop[/QUOTE]
Synthetic antibiotics also have nowhere near the viability of natural biotics.
Phage therapy has been a thing for some time now.
During the cold war the US and the Soviet Union both developed methods for handling bacterial infections with minimal interaction.
The Soviets produced phage therapy. Take a bacteriophage, a virus that reproduces by attaching to bacteria and injecting its DNA, and replace the DNA that it injects, and you have a little ninja that murders bacteria.
Both methods have their pluses and minuses.
Plus category for phage therapy is that it is highly targeted. It hits the bacteria responsible and ignores not only normal cells, but other forms of bacteria. It becomes functionally impossible to overdose because there are literally no side effects. Another benefit is that, because phages are generally rather violent, it is difficult for a bacteria to evolve a resistance. Imagine trying to evolve to defeat getting stabbed with a spear. Even assuming they do, the phages ALSO evolve.
The drawbacks are significant, but nothing damning. Due to the fact that they are carefully targeted, you need to have a much better idea about what specific strain is causing problems before a treatment can be given. Antibiotics are MUCH broader spectrum. Prescribing them is easy. If they fail to work, you can just switch the next antibiotic type and go from there.
Annnnnd now you are wondering "yeah fuck off, if it was great, we'd use it." Understandable, but here is the deal: The soviets were shitty at science documentation and procedure. Their stuff simply wouldn't meet our standards most of the time. We'd need to start from scratch to make it meet the standards for human consumption.
That alone wouldn't cause much pause, but the other issues is that it is simply too effective. The stuff is basically a one and done dose. A one and done dose of a product that you can't effectively patent because the tech has been around almost half a century at this point.
In short: Huge costs to go through the FDA process to gain approval all for a tech that, despite being revolutionary in our market, would immediately be undercut by a thousand generics that are just as good, if not better.
Lighter note: There are a few western places that are slowly, but surely making progress in the department.
I feel like there is an over faith in technology or research to fix everything, granted once it becomes a big enough problem people will do something about it, but what about in the mean time? Why do we always have to wait until something is a problem to deal with it rather than be preventive by nature.
[QUOTE=Lone Wolf807;49948051]Why do we always have to wait until something is a problem to deal with it rather than be preventive by nature.[/QUOTE]
Because there's not nearly the amount of profit to be made in preventing new issues as treating them when they first spring up.
The wonders of capitalism.
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