The looming medipocalypse

In My Humble Opinion
1

We seem to be rapidly losing our antibiotics to microbial resistance. It is not just slightly infuriating that doctors hand them out on demand to treat rhinovirus infections (colds) where they do nothing. They are fed to livestock in order to increase yields. Doctors have perhaps been less than vigilant about insuring that patients take the full course, leading to the rise of stronger bacteria.

Antibiotics are very important – perhaps crucial – to the execution of modern medicine. Without them, the survival rates for some procedure will probably drop significantly. Without them, conditions like appendicitis, bacterial pneumonia and ectopic pregnancy will be life-ending with much greater regularity.

We have no one to blame but our people who knew enough to make this not happen. We currently have no practical back-up plan – bacteriophages are awesome, but, as I understand it, their success rate is far below that of antibiotics. Within about a generation or two, we will be back close to the mortality rates of a century ago.

Perhaps this will make us, as a species, stronger, by dint of natural selection. My question, though, is what sort of impact will this have on society? What sort of people will the rougher future see?

2

Hopefully, by that time, we’ll have moved from chemical antibiotics to biological agents doing the same thing. Basically we select (or create) bacteria and viruses that feed only on other bacteria.

Before then, we’ll see the development and use of targetted medicines. In these treatments, the medicine is contained in a nanocapsule that only opens under certain conditions (e.g. when it reaches a certain organ, or encounters a marker chemical).

3

I mentioned biological agents (bacteriophages), which have been used for longer than antibiotics have… They are wonderful because they only target one specific bacteria, so they have none of the troubling side effects. And you only have to take one dose, because they multiply as long as they have food. Unfortunately, I have read/heard that their effectiveness is typically at or below 50%.