The End of Modern Medicine
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Deadly "superbugs" that have evolved from antibiotic overuse may be the solution to all those pesky poor people in the world. They won't be able to afford the medical care to survive ordinary infections. Margaret Chan, director general of WHO (World Health Organization) via ABC News: [emphasis added]
"Some experts say we are moving back to the pre-antibiotic era. No. This will be a post-antibiotic era. In terms of new replacement antibiotics, the pipeline is virtually dry," said Chan. "A post-antibiotic era means, in effect, an end to modern medicine as we know it. Things as common as strep throat or a child's scratched knee could once again kill."
The dearth of effective antibiotics could also make surgical procedures and certain cancer treatments risky or even impossible, Chan said.
"Some sophisticated interventions, like hip replacements, organ transplants, cancer chemotherapy and care of preterm infants, would become far more difficult or even too dangerous to undertake," she said.
The development of new antibiotics now could help stave off catastrophe later. But few drug makers are willing to invest in drugs designed for short term use.
"It's simply not profitable for them," said Dr. William Schaffner, chairman of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville. "If you create a new drug to red[uce] cholesterol, people will be taking that drug every day for the rest of their lives. But you only take antibiotics for a week or maybe 10 days."
Superbugs might take down a few of the job-creating 1%, too, but they'll ease out of here pain-free, surrounded by doctors and hospital staff, unlike the rest of us.
Comments
Bbbbut...
Obabmacare will take care of all that!
Krugman says so!*
* don't ask how I, a person with an actual job-related (New York State even) health insurance plan got caught up in the "will they or won;t they" pay for needed treatments.; Or how my union's being soaked for my (lack of) coverage, since everything has a copayment. Or how my PCP left the plan and left me without a pcp.
My insurer's stock is in good shape, so what else matters?
(To be fair, which I'm not inclined to be because I expect more from Krugnman: fuck you. And moving on from that, yes, at the moment i'm no worse off than I would have been, which means that my union's welfare fund is paying through the nose for a benefit I hardly use because (a) the copays are hard, and (b) the "choice" of pcps? Gimme a break. So I pay and the welfare fund pays and cui bono? The insurance companies! And anyone who's still surprised I invite meet me one-tp-one.
AND ANDREW CUOMO? He is dead to me. I did not vote for him, as he seemed to me to represent the republican view. I hope I don't have to justify this to Corrrente readers.
the last injustice? guy who is really good only at photo ops,running in opposition to the guy who inspired this., who knows alll the intimate " details of his constituents, who had been deserted by the alleged "Democrats"