From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Sat Aug 11 2001 - 11:51:08 MDT
Damien wrote:
> Still, my point remains: `superbugs' aren't an especially virulent
> novelty, just a reversion to how things were *before* we had the
> `low-hanging fruit' off the metaphoric antibiotic tree, and wasted
> it improvidently. Is that correct?
I'm not sure what the original context was but I'll comment.
"Before" *and* now a condition of war exists between various "bugs".
They developed antibiotics as assault missles. The viruses
have been swapping the design instructions for these devices
for quite some time. All we threw into the mixture was
a selection pressure to promote the survival of the instructions.
So their abundance has increased.
I wouldn't be very worried about the fact that we have picked
off the "low-hanging fruit". With hundreds of essential genes
to potentially target there are going to be lots of opportunities
to re-invent antibiotics. Fortunately these will likely
be produced using organic chemistry and the bacteria will not
be able to get their hands on the instructions. Well, at least
not until the Sysop decides to uplift them....
Robert
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