The terrible epidemics of the "pestilence" and the "black death" destroyed almost half of the population of medieval Europe. No less deadly was the Spanish flu pandemic at the beginning of the last century. However, the most terrible harvest in the history of mankind was taken not by wars, plague and cholera, but by ordinary infections. It was a real scourge of those wounded in battles and traumatized in everyday life until the 1940s.
Before the advent of antibiotics, cuts, even just scratches, died one in nine. A third of patients with pneumonia died. Diseases of the ear, throat and nose led to serious consequences. Medical manuscripts tell of tens, if not hundreds, of millions of victims of elementary unsanitary conditions …
The antibiotic that saved millions
A dramatic change came after the discovery of antibiotics in the late 1920s. In 1943, the wounded on the battlefield began to receive the first doses of penicillin. But after a couple of years, the inventor of this miraculous drug, Sir Alexander Fleming, issued a formidable warning.
An eminent biochemist predicted that the action of penicillin would be short-lived. Indeed, in the course of inevitable evolution, bacteria will certainly develop resistance to antibiotics, and the person himself will help them in this …
Incorrect dosage will kill only weak bacteria, and the survivors will immediately produce stable offspring that are not afraid of antibiotics. Microorganisms give tens of thousands of generations a year and very soon will be able to withstand powerful doses of drugs.
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The germ empire strikes back
In his alarming predictions, Fleming was entirely correct. In 1940, the first penicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus was identified. A decade later, tetracycline appeared, and in 1959 several types of microorganisms were already opposed to it. The famous erythromycin appeared in 1952, and in 1968 he could no longer cope with streptococcus.
When antibiotics became widely available and they began to be used not only in medicine, microorganisms quickly developed defense mechanisms. So, the next generations of drugs - methicillin, levofloxacin, linezolid, daptomycin - could withstand the siege of the "empire of microbes" for no more than a year or two, and some "surrendered" after a few months.
Meanwhile, the development of a new antibiotic costs at least a billion dollars, which is available only to the largest pharmaceutical corporations. That is why many companies are losing interest in the production of new drugs, and today only a few drugs appear on the market.
It is much more profitable to release drugs for chronic diseases for long-term use, rather than several injections.
More recently, pharmacologists have begun to discuss with great alarm the sinister form of immunity, when only one of the many drugs is effective.
In general, both doctors and pharmacists agree that the situation is not just critical, but rather catastrophic. Many leading experts believe that the world has already entered an era without antibiotics and that this is much more dangerous than terrorism or weapons of mass destruction.
Cannot heal …
Several years ago not only an alarm bell sounded, but a "medical siren" howled. In a leading New York hospital, an elderly postoperative patient died, having contracted a hospital (!) Infection.
And it turned out that he has a "pan-resistant" form of the disease, which is not affected by any antibiotics.
Despite the professional risk, the attending physicians boldly released information about this unusual case.
In the article, they sincerely lamented that their patient suffered from an infection, which modern medicine was unable to cope with. At the same time, there are now effective complex methods of combating even advanced forms of cancer.
Failure of antibiotics for common bacterial diseases is increasingly common in elderly patients after "long-term intensive care." Today, there are so many patients with antibiotic-resistant infections that they begin to pose a great danger to others and require immediate isolation.
Even ordinary intramuscular and intravenous injections become dangerous, thanks to which microorganisms open a direct path to vital organs.
Antibiotics are also prescribed as a preventive measure before such serious surgical interventions as heart surgery or, say, a caesarean section. Without antibiotics, the risk of such operations will increase dramatically, and many surgeons will simply refuse them.
Cyborg verdict
Implants are a kind of visiting card of our century, and no one is surprised by pacemakers, artificial joints, blood vessels or heart valves. But after all, bacteria form a film on the surface of most implantable devices, which can only be destroyed with antibiotics.
Implantation of synthetic prosthetic materials is almost always fraught with the risk of infection, and if the infection is not suppressed in time, the result of even a successful operation will be nullified. The doctors' calculations are amazing - if the susceptibility of bacteria to antibiotics disappears, surgery and traumatology will be the first to suffer. After all, joint replacement surgeries have long been "put on stream" - they are done to tens of thousands of patients. Without effective antibiotics, the threat of infection and death will hang over one in six patients operated on.
In the future, the day is not far off when, along with an artificial heart, a person will receive "plastic" kidneys, liver, spleen and lungs. Each (and especially repeated) implantation of such complex organs will require the use of a whole "cocktail" of antibiotics that suppress not only the immune system, but also the work of the endocrine glands.
Future medical technologies such as nanobot injection will also require powerful antibiotic support. These tiny robots traveling through the body are capable of fantastic surgeries, delivering drugs directly to the diseased organ and performing microsurgery. But at the same time, it is a great vehicle for bacteria.
Deadly fashion, sports and poisoned food
Problems with the effectiveness of antibiotics threaten not only medicine, but also cosmetology. Today's fads for large-scale multi-colored tattoos, botox injections and liposuction can be deadly.
The “infectious risk” group also includes athletes weakened by doping and hormonal diets, as well as motorcycle racers and climbers, who are often injured with exotic infections that can withstand even strong antibiotics.
The reasons for the antibiotic feeding of cattle, pigs, poultry, fish and crustaceans raised on marine farms are accelerated growth with rapid weight gain, as well as resistance to diseases and parasites. It turns out that the lion's share of all antibiotics is used in animal husbandry and fish farming.
It is widely believed among biologists (and here they are fully supported by physicians) that it is precisely "agricultural antibiotics" that are the main reason for the emergence of resistant bacteria.
These microbes live in the intestines of animals, get into manure, groundwater, dust and insects. In this way, with the meat of slaughtered animals, microorganisms enter humans.
A similar travel pattern for bacteria is confirmed by studies by the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the USDA. The statistics collected by them indicate that about half of the livestock products are contaminated with microbes highly resistant to tetracycline and other antibiotics.
Getting to the consumer with bloody steaks and other dishes made from insufficiently fried and cooked meat, microorganisms attack a person, and he picks up what doctors call a "drug-resistant infection."
Return of the boomerang
It is quite natural that with the end of the era of antibiotics, not only medicine and pharmacology, but also agriculture will suffer greatly.
Realizing this, scientists and environmentalists, back in the 70s of the past century, launched a wide campaign against the agricultural use of antibiotics. Demanding, if not prohibiting, then at least substantially restricting all kinds of medicinal feed additives, they prove to recalcitrant farmers that they are digging a hole for themselves.
So far, the results of this nearly half-century struggle for the future of antibiotics are more than modest. So, in the United States and some countries, the use of penicillin and tetracycline as growth stimulants is partially prohibited. The rest is determined by the pursuit of momentary profits, forcing agricultural enterprises and veterinary pharmaceutical firms in every possible way to resist any restrictions on the use of antibiotics.
However, few people ask questions about how the emergence of resistant bacteria can turn out for animals on farms. And the era without antibiotics poses a danger not only to medicine, but equally to agriculture. In animal husbandry, antibiotics are used not only as growth stimulants, but also to treat individual animals and as a prophylactic agent to protect an entire herd.
If the antibiotics lose their potency, the animals will suffer. It will be impossible to treat them for disease, and if conditions are not changed on farms where animals are raised in crowded conditions, then diseases will spread.
Oleg ARSENOV
