Ep. 156: dooming ourselves with medicine

Jack of All Graves

Our favorite boffin, Eileen Marks-Nelson, is here to chat with us about a listener science concern that turned out to be WAY more troubling than we even anticipated: Antimicrobial resistance. Medicine has extended our lives, but has our use of it shortened them?

Highlights:

[0:00] Marko tells CoRri and Eileen about Miriam Rodriguez, the middle aged Mexican woman who took on the cartels solo to get justice for her daughter
[15:09] Mark’s American child accent leads us to a brief discussion of Sylvester Stallone and the Rocky films, and then. we remember to introduce our pal Eileen Marks-Nelson
[22:04] What we watched! (Fall of the House of Usher, The Reckoning, , Friday the 13th: A New Beginning, Totally Killer, Vampire in Brooklyn, 10 Cloverfield Lane, Ernest Scared Stupid, Deadstream, Train To Busan, Dead Alive, The Host, Carrie, A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night, Insidious, VHS85, The Creator)
[69:10] Eileen tells us about antimicrobial resistance, and why we’re sleeping on one of the biggest threats to human existence

Stuff we referenced:

• History of medicine – 20th Century, Advancements, Innovations | Britannica
• Bacteria | Basic Biology
• Ancient brew masters tapped antibiotic secrets | ScienceDaily
• Tetracycline-Labeled Human Bone from Ancient Sudanese Nubia (A.D. 350) | Science
• Moulds in Ancient and more recent medicine
• Antiviral Resistance: Antivirals, Antimicrobial Resistance, HIV (clevelandclinic.org)
• The Challenge of Antibiotic-Resistant Staphylococcus: Lessons from Hospital Nurseries in the mid-20th Century
• ALEXANDER FLEMING Penicillin Nobel Lecture, December 11, 1945
• Antibiotics: Conventional Therapy and Natural Compounds with Antibacterial Activity—A Pharmaco-Toxicological Screening
• Unearthing the story of the first antifungal drugs
• Penicillin | Discovery, History, Uses, Types, Side Effects, & Facts | Britannica
• Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus emerged long before the introduction of methicillin into clinical practice
• Changes in Intestinal Flora of Farm Personnel after Introduction of a Tetracycline-Supplemented Feed on a Farm | NEJM
• Drug Companies Accept FDA Plan To Phase Out Some Animal Antibiotic Uses : The Salt : NPR
• E-I-E-I-Oh no: Decades of antibiotics in farm animals lead to deadly superbugs | Grist
• Study: Farmed Fish Could Be Another Source of Antibiotic Resistance | Food Safety News
• Recent Advances in the Discovery of Novel Antiprotozoal Agents
• Drug Development to Protozoan Diseases
• WHO’s first global report on antibiotic resistance reveals serious, worldwide threat to public health
• Humans Can No Longer Ignore the Threat of Fungi
• Antimicrobial resistance: a global threat | UNEP – UN Environment Programme
• AMR2023_summary_EN.pdf (unep.org)
• When the drugs don’t work: can we do anything about antimicrobial resistance? | Global development | The Guardian
• Malaria-causing parasites resistant to both treatment and detection have emerged in Ethiopia
• Antibiotics: Combatting Tolerance To Stop Resistance
• COVID-19 Reverses Progress in Fight Against Antimicrobial Resistance in U.S.
• Paxlovid-Resistant Covid ‘Discovered’ Should We Worry?
• Paxlovid Resistance: Is It Just a Matter of Time Now?
• Disinfectant resistance in bacteria: Mechanisms, spread, and resolution strategies – ScienceDirect
• Resisting disinfectants | Communications Medicine (nature.com)
• U.S. Antibiotic Awareness Week Toolkit 2022 (cdc.gov)
• A Superbug Stalked My Daughter and Stole Her Life. Phage Therapy Could Have Saved Her | Blogs | CDC
• An insight into the antifungal pipeline: selected new molecules and beyond
• Using viruses to treat antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections
• Nanoantibiotics: Functions and Properties at the Nanoscale to Combat Antibiotic ResistanceMicrobes that cause cavities can form superorganisms able to ‘crawl’ and spread on teeth