The end of antibiotics?

[katarn]

Black Death probably was not the bubonic plague. More likely a virus.

What? News to me... I've seen stuff sayinng it could have been, but nothing saying 'probably.'

[Speaker to Animals]

Black Death probably was not the bubonic plague. More likely a virus.

What? News to me... I've seen stuff sayinng it could have been, but nothing saying 'probably.'

Controversial new research suggests that contrary to the history books, the "Black Death" that devastated medieval Europe was not the bubonic plague, but rather an Ebola-like virus.

History books have long taught the Black Death, which wiped out a quarter of Europe's population in the Middle Ages, was caused by bubonic plague, spread by infected fleas that lived on black rats. But new research in England suggests the killer was actually an Ebola-like virus transmitted directly from person to person.

The Black Death killed some 25 million Europeans in a devastating outbreak between 1347 and 1352, and then reappeared periodically for more than 300 years. Scholars had thought flea-infested rats living on ships brought the disease from China to Italy and then the rest of the continent.

But researchers Christopher Duncan and Susan Scott of the University of Liverpool say that the flea-borne bubonic plague could not have torn across Europe the way the Black Death did.

"If you look at the way it spreads, it was spreading at a rate of around 30 miles in two to three days," says Duncan. "Bubonic plague moves at a pace of around 100 yards a year."

Unlike the bubonic plague, a bacterial disease which still exists in parts of Asia, India and North America, viral diseases are passed on from person to person, usually by breath or touch.

Ebola-Like Symptoms Cited

In their new book Biology of Plagues: Evidence from Historical Populations, Duncan and Scott compare the signs and symptoms of the Black Death with modern-day viruses such as the Spanish flu, the West Nile virus and, most closely, Ebola.

Medieval descriptions of the Black Death sound like the hemorrhagic fever caused by an Ebola-like virus, the authors say. Such fever strikes fast and causes blood vessels to burst underneath the skin, bringing out welts, similar to what British medical texts from the Middle Ages describe as "God's tokens."

The liquidization of internal organs that causes excruciating pain in Ebola victims matches the descriptions of historical autopsies on plague victims, which similarly describe internal organs being dissolved along with the appearance of a black liquid, according to the authors.

Duncan and Scott also note that efforts to quarantine the Black Death were successful. In the wake of the first outbreak, Europeans learned that quarantining infected families for 40 days was effective in stopping the spread. Such a measure would not have worked if the disease were transmitted by rats, the authors suggest, because rats do not observe quarantines.

Also, the 40-day period was enough time to ensure the disease finished its incubation period. One of the difficulties in controlling the Ebola virus is that its symptoms start to appear only about five to 22 days after exposure. Therefore people who appear perfectly healthy could be carrying the lethal disease.

Skeptics Say Theorists Should Work Plague by Plague

Ann Carmichael, a historian who is an expert on the Black Plague, welcomes the work produced by Duncan and Scott, but remains skeptical.

"It is problematic to assimilate evidence over four centuries and draw conclusive theories," says Carmichael. "We must look at it on a plague-by-plague basis."

According to Carmichael, texts dating from 14th-century Italy provide extremely detailed and consistent accounts that describe visible swellings called buboes that developed predominantly under the skin around the groin and armpits — a prime target area for fleas. The buboes are what give bubonic plague its name.

"We don't know that Florentine buboes looked like 'God's tokens' found in England, however," she says.

The research by Duncan and Scott is a good start, but there is need for further research, says Carmichael. There is no robust evidence that quarantining systematically applied worked, she says.

Link to HIV-Resistant Gene?

Duncan and Scott believe their theory of a viral cause for the Black Death is supported by the recent discovery of a mutated gene called CCR5 that is resistant to HIV/AIDS. It is estimated that approximately 10 percent to 18 percent of those of European descent carry the gene.

American researchers working on the gene have calculated that the first mutation of the gene took place around 650 years ago — coinciding with the first outbreak of the Black Death in Europe.

According to Duncan, a process of natural selection could have left Europe populated predominantly by those carrying the mutated gene. This would account for the high percentage of the European population that still carries this gene.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=117310&page=1


It's kind of obvious it wasn't the bubonic plague. The bubonic plague didn't act anything like the black death other than the presence of buboes. which in the case of the black death, were not even located in the same places.

If you read the actual accounts of what the black death did to people, it's fucking terrifying. There is nothing like that going around like that now. The closest analog would be ebloa, but even that is not as contagious and deadly.

Also the theory that it was the bubonic plague only started about a hundred years ago when a researcher noted that both diseases had the buboes and declared it solved. It never really was. When historians and epidemiologists actually sit down and compare notes, it doesn't add up. It persisted because historians didn't really very often share the accounts of the symptoms and other factors with epidemiologists, and epidemiologists just assumed the standard account must be true and never really looked into it.

The incubation periods are different. The symptoms are different. Pretty much everything is different.

Well worth the read: https://www.amazon.com/Return-Black-Dea ... lack+death

[ssu]

Interesting and controversial.

Basically a disease that gets airborne (that the pathogen can spread through coughing and sneezing) are the real killers that can evolve to be pandemics. Yet it doesn't have to be a virus, it can also happen to bacteria or fungi. Actually bubonic plague can get airborne too:

When a person has plague pneumonia, they may cough droplets containing the plague bacteria into air. If these bacteria-containing droplets are breathed in by another person they can cause pneumonic plague. Typically this requires direct and close contact with the person with pneumonic plague. Transmission of these droplets is the only way that plague can spread between people. This type of spread has not been documented in the United States since 1924, but still occurs with some frequency in developing countries.

See Plague: Ecology and Transmission (CDC)

[C-Mag]

I wonder if human gene editing might be a long term answer to this problem.

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS !

[Speaker to Animals]

I agree, but first we need to let this natural selection event complete the process of weeding out the progressives from the gene pool. Otherwise you only open the door to transhumanism.

[The Conservative]

I agree, but first we need to let this natural selection event complete the process of weeding out the progressives from the gene pool. Otherwise you only open the door to transhumanism.

Don't worry, if they cut off their genitals when Trump, "Builds the wall.", we won't have anything to worry about. They will put themselves out of the gene pool.

[jbird4049]

Drug companies don't fund a lot of research for antibiotics because they aren't a big revenue source.

Even less funding is their for vaccines.

What is more profitable to the companies?

Having...

a) infected people eating medicine for the rest of their lives or providing other costly medical treatment.

b) a cheap vaccine shot once in your lifetime (usually at childhood) that takes care of goddam disease.

Once an antigen is found, it takes a decade or so before you have vaccinations given to people. So for a medical Company, making a vaccine is a long and risky endeavour.

Drug companies have been cutting back on research for better vaccines, and antibiotics for years. They just sit on the patents on what they already make. Also the mass use of antibiotics in animal feed is also a problem in creating drug resistance. There have been efforts to stop this, but they have blocked.

[ssu]

Drug companies have been cutting back on research for better vaccines, and antibiotics for years. They just sit on the patents on what they already make. Also the mass use of antibiotics in animal feed is also a problem in creating drug resistance. There have been efforts to stop this, but they have blocked.

It's basically a risky move to go and first research and then get a new medicine on the market. When there's an old one that makes money for the Company, why rock the boat? What is interesting is that these huge medical giants can basically get their profits from just a few medicine they produce. Naturally they don't want their finances breaken down that way (to show just from what they get their money), but it's known.

Patents are essential. When they expire, a medical Company can be in huge difficulties. The most profitable drug (in 2014) is a good example of this:

Humira, a drug that treats certain forms of arthritis, totalled $11.8 billion in 2014, more than any other prescription drug. Recently, rival drugmaker Amgen’s sought permission to market a cheaper, generic version of Humira. The request was struck down by the U.S. patent office. With the ruling, AbbVie’s claims that Humira sales will hit $18 billion by 2020 may be far more likely.

Pharmaceutical companies generate an estimated $300 billion in profit a year, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Much of that value is driven by a handful of extremely popular prescription drugs.

See here

[Speaker to Animals]

Patents are not essential, but in fact are quite harmful in this context. If you want to cure diseases again, you need to fund government labs again.

[TheOneX]

The end of antibiotics is not necessarily a bad thing, it just means we have discovered a better way to attack harmful bacteria.

For example:
http://time.com/3560432/alternative-dru ... tibiotics/

But scientists say this new technology is less prone to resistance than antibiotics because the treatment attacks infections in a completely different way. The treatment uses enzymes called endolysins — naturally occurring viruses that attack certain bacterial species but leave beneficial microbes alone.

http://www.nature.com/news/antibiotic-a ... ce-1.17621

Plants, animals and fungi have vastly different immune systems, but all make peptides — small proteins — that destroy bacteria. Peptides from creatures such as amphibians and reptiles, which are unusually resistant to infection, could yield new therapeutics.
.
.
.
Phages have several advantages over antibiotics. Each type attacks only one type of bacterium, so treatments leave harmless (or beneficial) bacteria unscathed. And because phages are abundant in nature, researchers have ready replacements for any therapeutic strain that bacteria evolve to resist.
.
.
.
CRISPR, a gene-editing technique that has taken the scientific world by storm, is based on a strategy that many bacteria use to protect themselves against phages. Researchers are turning that system back on itself to make bacteria kill themselves.

https://phys.org/news/2014-11-alternati ... otics.html

A team of international scientists has tested a novel substance, which has been developed by Eduard Babiychuk and Annette Draeger from the Institute of Anatomy, University of Bern in Switzerland. This compound constitutes a novel approach for the treatment of bacterial infections: the scientists engineered artificial nanoparticles made of lipids, "liposomes" that closely resemble the membrane of host cells. These liposomes act as decoys for bacterial toxins and so are able to sequester and neutralize them. Without toxins, the bacteria are rendered defenseless and can be eliminated by the cells of the host's own immune system.