From: KPJ (kpj@sics.se)
Date: Mon Jun 12 2000 - 15:45:01 MDT
It appears as if <hal@finney.org> wrote:
|
|The traditional solution is regulation, passing laws forbidding the use
|of antibiotics in products unless there is a demonstrated medical need.
|This is not very attractive for Extropians.
|
|I think we do better to encourage aggressive research into biotech.
How? To encourage aggressive research requires lots of money,
Today there exists a number of substances which can treat various tropical
diseases, but their production have been discontinued, since the diseases
only occur in the poorest countries, and the people who live there cannot
pay for the production. I understand some corporatuons try to sell the
patents to the WHO, but its members appear reluctant to pay the prices.
Biotechnology costs, you know.
Any suggestions on how to solve this equation?
|The more we learn about how bacteria operate, the better the chances of
|coming up with a truly effective method of controlling harmful bacteria.
Knowledge on how bacteria work will make marvels in the hands of good people,
and make mighty nightmares in the hands of evil humans.
May the best team win!
|I understand that bacteria are biologically very different from the kinds
|of cells which make up our bodies. We need to find something that can
|prevent them from reproducing without harming our cells, something so
|fundamental that they can't evolve away from it. Hopefully, research
|will hit upon a "magic bullet" like this within the next few years.
The fundamental biochemical processes of life appear everywhere. Bacteria
have this magical weapon: they take parts of DNA from other life forms and
incorporate into their own DNA programming. This could make it somewhat
hard to eliminate them. Anyways, we would only wish to get rid of _some_
of the bacteria. Humans would find a world without bacteria a less than
perfect world, I am sure.
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