Antibiotic Apocalypse Research Articles

Antibiotic Apocalypse

Chemistry & IndustryVolume 85, Issue 11 p. 18-21 Health & Wellbeing Antibiotic Apocalypse First published: 07 December 2021 https://doi.org/10.1002/cind.8511_6.xAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Volume85, Issue11November 2021Pages 18-21 RelatedInformation

'Willy nilly' doctors, bad patients, and resistant bodies in general public explanations of antimicrobial resistance.

Increased public engagement is a feature of policy and communications focussed on the reduction of antimicrobial resistance. Explaining antimicrobial resistance for general publics has proven difficult and they continue to endorse apparently mistaken knowledge, including the conflation of antimicrobial resistance with the notion of the resistant body. We interviewed members of the general public in Melbourne, Australia, to explore explanatory models for antimicrobial resistance and shed light on the persistence of the resistant body assumption and related concepts. In the face of AMR's complexity and the portended antibiotic apocalypse, publics rely on a heavily inscribed understanding of the body defending itself against microbes. Publics also read antibiotic misuse and overuse messages as the responsibility of other patients and medical practitioners, and not themselves. Significantly, the scientific world view that has created expert knowledge about AMR hails publics in ways that discredits them and limits their capacity to take action. Increased engagement with publics will be required to ensure that collaborative and sustainable AMR approaches are fashioned for the future.

Ethical Issues in the Marketing Strategies of Pharmaceutical Companies in Peshawar: A Stakeholders Perspectives

This study endeavors to scientifically understand the ethics of marketing strategies used to promote antibiotics. It explores the key stakeholders’ awareness regarding prescription, regulation, and use of antibiotics while taking account of the regulatory framework governing it. The phenomenon of “superbug”- bacteria immune to all drugs- is agreed upon as a major threat arising out of overuse of antibiotics. The advent of the “antibiotic apocalypse” is considered to be a dark reality, which is to be faced by humanity in near future. According to the renowned medical journal The Lancet, antimicrobial resistance can cost up to $100 trillion by the year 2050. Despite this urgency, there is very little scientific work from the point of view of marketing ethics. This study addresses the knowledge gap. The population includes physicians, industry sales managers, pharmacists, and the directors of relevant legal bodies. Data was gathered through in-depth interviews which were conducted from targeted respondents that revealed many exciting findings. Constructivist grounded theory was employed as a strategy of inquiry to generate contextually robust understanding. Total interviews conducted were 23 of which 20 were analyzed. Data were analyzed by following various coding processes, identifying categories, and linking them towards emergent themes. It was found that antibiotics are predominantly misused and even abused, resulting in antibiotic resistance. The industry exercises unethical promotional practices in the form of misleading marketing strategies influencing the consumption patterns of customers. Physicians’ poor adherence to ethics and lack of awareness on the part of patients are contributing factors in the misuse of antibiotics. The Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) also exhibits various loopholes in policy and practice leading to immense overuse of antibiotics. The current state of affairs can be improved if the key stakeholders ensure ethical behaviors through self-regulation and adherence to international and national codes of ethics. Reforms in prevalent DRAP laws for industry and pharmacies can play a vital to tackle this issue. The theme of the thesis is ethical marketing.

Five rules for resistance management in the antibiotic apocalypse, a road map for integrated microbial management.

Resistance to new antimicrobials can become widespread within 2–3 years. Resistance problems are particularly acute for bacteria that can experience selection as both harmless commensals and pathogenic hospital‐acquired infections. New drugs, although welcome, cannot tackle the antimicrobial resistance crisis alone: new drugs must be partnered with more sustainable patterns of use. However, the broader experience of resistance management in other disciplines, and the assumptions on which resistance rests, is not widely appreciated in clinical and microbiological disciplines. Improved awareness of the field of resistance management could improve clinical outcomes and help shape novel solutions. Here, the aim is to develop a pragmatic approach to developing a sustainable integrated means of using antimicrobials, based on an interdisciplinary synthesis of best practice, recent theory and recent clinical data. This synthesis emphasizes the importance of pre‐emptive action and the value of reducing the supply of genetic novelty to bacteria under selection. The weight of resistance management experience also cautions against strategies that over‐rely on the fitness costs of resistance or low doses. The potential (and pitfalls) of shorter courses, antibiotic combinations and antibiotic mixing or cycling are discussed in depth. Importantly, some of variability in the success of clinical trials of mixing approaches can be explained by the number and diversity of drugs in a trial, as well as whether trials encompass single wards or the wider transmission network that is a hospital. Consideration of the importance of data, and of the initially low frequency of resistance, leads to a number of additional recommendations. Overall, reduction in selection pressure, interference with the transmission of problematic genotypes and multidrug approaches (combinations, mixing or cycling) are all likely to be required for sustainability and the protection of forthcoming drugs.

The ‘Antibiotic Apocalypse’ – Scaremongering or Scientific Reporting?

Antimicrobial resistance is dominating scientific media. We are warned of an impending 'antibiotic apocalypse', where mankind faces its biggest threat, untreatable microbes. However, the world is not ending. Scientists are responding to the threat; new knowledge and chemotherapeutics are being created to safeguard our future. The future is bright, not gloomy.

Adapting Drug Approval Pathways for Bacteriophage-Based Therapeutics.

The global rise of multi-drug resistant bacteria has resulted in the notion that an “antibiotic apocalypse” is fast approaching. This has led to a number of well publicized calls for global funding initiatives to develop new antibacterial agents. The long clinical history of phage therapy in Eastern Europe, combined with more recent in vitro and in vivo success, demonstrates the potential for whole phage or phage based antibacterial agents. To date, no whole phage or phage derived products are approved for human therapeutic use in the EU or USA. There are at least three reasons for this: (i) phages possess different biological, physical, and pharmacological properties compared to conventional antibiotics. Phages need to replicate in order to achieve a viable antibacterial effect, resulting in complex pharmacodynamics/pharmacokinetics. (ii) The specificity of individual phages requires multiple phages to treat single species infections, often as part of complex cocktails. (iii) The current approval process for antibacterial agents has evolved with the development of chemically based drugs at its core, and is not suitable for phages. Due to similarities with conventional antibiotics, phage derived products such as endolysins are suitable for approval under current processes as biological therapeutic proteins. These criteria render the approval of phages for clinical use theoretically possible but not economically viable. In this review, pitfalls of the current approval process will be discussed for whole phage and phage derived products, in addition to the utilization of alternative approval pathways including adaptive licensing and “Right to try” legislation.

"Antibiotic Apocalypse:" A wakeup call for dental professionals

"Antibiotic Apocalypse:" A wakeup call for dental professionals

Superbugs causing ventilator associated pneumonia in a tertiary care hospital and the return of pre-antibiotic era!

The rise in super bugs causing Ventilator-Associated Pneumonia (VAP) is a major cause of mortality and morbidity despite recent advances in management owing to the looming 'antibiotic apocalypse'. The aetiology and susceptibility pattern of the VAP isolates varies with patient population, type of intensive care unit (ICU) and is an urgent diagnostic challenge. The present study carried out for a period of one year in a tertiary care hospital, enrolled patients on mechanical ventilation (MV) for ≥48 hrs. Endotracheal aspirates (ETA) from suspected VAP patients were processed by semi quantitative method. Staphylococus aureus, members of Enterobacteriaceae were more common in early onset VAP (EOVAP), while Nonfermenting Gram negative bacilli (NFGNB) were significantly associated with late onset VAP (LOVAP). Most of the isolates were multi drug resistant (MDR) super bugs. With limited treatment options left for this crisis situation like the pre-antibiotic era; it is an alarm for rational antibiotic therapy usage and intensive education programs.

Are we facing an antibiotic apocalypse?

Drug-resistant bacteria could become a lethal problem for healthcare systems across the world unless we become more restrained about antibiotic use

How the threat of antibiotic apocalypse helped a pharmacist find her voice.

How the threat of antibiotic apocalypse helped a pharmacist find her voice.

The antibiotic apocalypse is still dawning

The antibiotic apocalypse is still dawning

‘Post antibiotic apocalypse’: discourses of mutation in narratives of MRSA

In this paper we will consider the question of mutation as it is manifested in press coverage of MRSA in UK hospitals. This represents a fertile field of discourse which brings into focus issues relating to microbes, people and working practices as well as the concepts of risk and vulnerability. A regular feature of reporting has been the presence of explanations for drug resistance involving repeated random mutations of the microbe to achieve progressively greater resistance and versatility, largely through a Darwinian process which is 'clever' at overcoming human attempts at elimination. More recently a discourse has emerged which foregrounds also the vulnerability of patients who are very young, old or otherwise immunocompromised, or whose own genetic makeup might put them at risk from the microbe. The hospital is decentred as a source of infection, and attention is turned instead to nursing homes and gymnasia as sources of infection in the community. This latter development mitigates the responsibilities of hospitals and statutory healthcare providers and turns the risk back towards the individual as a responsible actor in an ecology of mutation.

“The post-antibiotic apocalypse” and the “war on superbugs”: catastrophe discourse in microbiology, its rhetorical form and political function

Discourses evoking an antibiotic apocalypse and a war on superbugs are emerging just at a time when so-called "catastrophe discourses" are undergoing critical and reflexive scrutiny in the context of global warming and climate change. This article combines insights from social science research into climate change discourses with applied metaphor research based on recent advances in cognitive linguistics, especially with relation to "discourse metaphors." It traces the emergence of a new apocalyptic discourse in microbiology and health care, examines its rhetorical and political function and discusses its advantages and disadvantages. It contains a reply by the author of the central discourse metaphor, "the post-antibiotic apocalypse," examined in the article.