RE: God and the dilemma with unfalsifiability
October 13, 2017 at 6:32 am
(This post was last modified: October 13, 2017 at 6:35 am by I_am_not_mafia.)
An example of observable evolution consistent with the theory of evolution:
Antibiotic resistance could spell end of modern medicine, says chief medic
Read this and you may never eat chicken again
Antibiotic resistance could spell end of modern medicine, says chief medic
Read this and you may never eat chicken again
Quote:And though common, resistant bacteria are a grave threat and getting worse.
They are responsible for at least 700,000 deaths around the world each year: 23,000 in the United States, 25,000 in Europe, more than 63,000 babies in India. Beyond those deaths, bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics cause millions of illnesses – 2m annually just in the United States – and cost billions in healthcare spending, lost wages, and lost national productivity.
It is predicted that by 2050, antibiotic resistance will cost the world $100tn and will cause a staggering 10m deaths per year.
Disease organisms have been developing defenses against the antibiotics meant to kill them for as long as antibiotics have existed. Penicillin arrived in the 1940s, and resistance to it swept the world in the 1950s.
Tetracycline arrived in 1948, and resistance was nibbling at its effectiveness before the 1950s ended. Erythromycin was discovered in 1952, and erythromycin resistance arrived in 1955. Methicillin, a lab-synthesized relative of penicillin, was developed in 1960 specifically to counter penicillin resistance, yet within a year, staph bacteria developed defenses against it as well, earning the bug the name MRSA, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.
After MRSA, there were the ESBLs, extended-spectrum beta-lactamases, which defeated not only penicillin and its relatives but also a large family of antibiotics called cephalosporins. And after cephalosporins were undermined, new antibiotics were achieved and lost in turn.
Each time pharmaceutical chemistry produced a new class of antibiotics, with a new molecular shape and a new mode of action, bacteria adapted.