The Real Axis Of Evil
Aegeri
Join Date: 2003-02-13 Member: 13486Members
Join Date: 2003-02-13 Member: 13486Members
<div class="IPBDescription">The one nobody told you about.</div> Although there is a lot of protests and other such attention lavished upon things like the war on Iraq, another war, one all mankind has been <i>losing</i> is still going on. This year, nearly ten million people will have died, and more in following years, will die from this axis of evil and most people are never going to bat an eye. Worse yet comes how to determine how to treat these.
The relationship between three pathogens, <i>Mycobacterium tuberculosis</i>, malaria and HIV are gaining more attention in the scientific community in general, but not the media. It is unfortunate, that the media is so incredibly dense they over exaggerate the the likes of SARS, caused by a relatively non mutable virus that wasn't actually that infectious, while everyone thinks <i>Mycobacterium tuberculosis</i> is beaten.
But they are so very wrong.
<i>Mycobacterium tuberculosis</i> is an unusual pathogen that is derived from soil dwelling bacteria. It is unusual in that the cell wall of these organisms is made of numerous unusual lipids not seen elsewhere in nature. These clever bacteria are capable of surviving being attacked by grazing protozoan cells, unfortunately, these same cells are similar to the macrophage (white blood cell) of our immune system. This already set up these bugs for infecting human beings, and worse, being damn good at it.
<i>M. tuberculosis</i> is the classic agent of disease that causes tuberculosis (hence the name). Tb attacks the lungs of the afflicted individual and causes a rapid decline in health eventually leading to death. Once tb decides to kill you, there is nothing that can be done. With the abuse of anti tb drugs like isoniazid (I think that's what it's called) drug resistant super TB bugs are now in the population. More disturbingly, it is estimated that more than <i>two billion</i> people, or 1/3 of the worlds population is infected with TB. In addition, it kills the most people of any single infectious agent, rivalled only by Malaria (and AIDS will top both of these pathogens in time).
What makes this worse is the alliance that TB has with two other infectious agents, HIV and Malaria. HIV is well covered and generally talked about a lot in the media, but the effect HIV has in boosting the sheer killing ability of TB and malaria is not as well understood. What is worse, having either TB or malaria actually makes it far EASIER to get badly infected by HIV!
Malaria is an intracellular parasite that is typically carried by mosquitoes (where it has reproduced). Once injected into an individual the organism hides in red blood cells, where it starts to slowly degrade both the amount of rbcs and the immune system. Like with HIV, having malaria will increase the chances of a latent TB infection from springing up.
So the real question remains on how to actually manage to control these pathogens and end the loss of human life?
In truth, that answer is probably that we can't. All three of these diseases basically infect the same sort of area (Africa in particular), and there are many logistical problems associated with actually getting into such places anyway.
Let's go into an example of the cold hard reality we face using AIDS as an example. AIDS kills around 3,000,000 people (probably about 2,600,000 but I'm not 100% certain) with more people estimated to die every year, mostly in Africa. So the typical responce is to just send the current drugs (protease inhibitors and integrase inhibitors) and all will be good. However, the problems with this aren't exactly apparent, drug companies understand this, but are usually being labelled as inhuman for it.
Why is this exactly? Well lets just say we dump tons of anti HIV drugs on the african population willy nilly to anyone who has aids. Without any means to regulate who takes the drug or (and importantly) in what dose every day, for the rest of their lives (you're on these drugs, side effects and all for the rest of your existence btw) there would be real problems. One of those problems will be the possible emergence of drug resistant HIV strains. Currently, it is known that some HIV strains are already resistant, but if you start giving drugs to a large population with that virus, you are just going to increase the frequency of antiviral genes in the population. As such, you're just going to start programming your very own disaster just waiting to reach your doorstep.
If you think about it really, bombing the countries worst hit by AIDs with drugs isn't going to do much good except cost someone taxs in subsidising the things. For what really? You will probably save some lives, but only to damn more down the track when the resistant strains hit them. In addition, these drugs aren't that effective in the end unless you keep to a very stringent doseage regime, which is hardly practical to expect of a population of millions of infected individuals.
(Note, to clarify, this thread has multiple discussions. Do you think the developed nations should intervene in the outbreaks of HIV, cholera or any other diseases in say Africa? Do you think the media are a bunch of idiots [And I do!] who scaremonger issues like Genetic engineering, SARS etc just at the whim of the moment without actually *educating* and *informing* the public about what to fear properly. The pathogens are just being used as examples of both the above, they are also relevant to the second. When was the last time you heard about TB? What about SARS?)
The relationship between three pathogens, <i>Mycobacterium tuberculosis</i>, malaria and HIV are gaining more attention in the scientific community in general, but not the media. It is unfortunate, that the media is so incredibly dense they over exaggerate the the likes of SARS, caused by a relatively non mutable virus that wasn't actually that infectious, while everyone thinks <i>Mycobacterium tuberculosis</i> is beaten.
But they are so very wrong.
<i>Mycobacterium tuberculosis</i> is an unusual pathogen that is derived from soil dwelling bacteria. It is unusual in that the cell wall of these organisms is made of numerous unusual lipids not seen elsewhere in nature. These clever bacteria are capable of surviving being attacked by grazing protozoan cells, unfortunately, these same cells are similar to the macrophage (white blood cell) of our immune system. This already set up these bugs for infecting human beings, and worse, being damn good at it.
<i>M. tuberculosis</i> is the classic agent of disease that causes tuberculosis (hence the name). Tb attacks the lungs of the afflicted individual and causes a rapid decline in health eventually leading to death. Once tb decides to kill you, there is nothing that can be done. With the abuse of anti tb drugs like isoniazid (I think that's what it's called) drug resistant super TB bugs are now in the population. More disturbingly, it is estimated that more than <i>two billion</i> people, or 1/3 of the worlds population is infected with TB. In addition, it kills the most people of any single infectious agent, rivalled only by Malaria (and AIDS will top both of these pathogens in time).
What makes this worse is the alliance that TB has with two other infectious agents, HIV and Malaria. HIV is well covered and generally talked about a lot in the media, but the effect HIV has in boosting the sheer killing ability of TB and malaria is not as well understood. What is worse, having either TB or malaria actually makes it far EASIER to get badly infected by HIV!
Malaria is an intracellular parasite that is typically carried by mosquitoes (where it has reproduced). Once injected into an individual the organism hides in red blood cells, where it starts to slowly degrade both the amount of rbcs and the immune system. Like with HIV, having malaria will increase the chances of a latent TB infection from springing up.
So the real question remains on how to actually manage to control these pathogens and end the loss of human life?
In truth, that answer is probably that we can't. All three of these diseases basically infect the same sort of area (Africa in particular), and there are many logistical problems associated with actually getting into such places anyway.
Let's go into an example of the cold hard reality we face using AIDS as an example. AIDS kills around 3,000,000 people (probably about 2,600,000 but I'm not 100% certain) with more people estimated to die every year, mostly in Africa. So the typical responce is to just send the current drugs (protease inhibitors and integrase inhibitors) and all will be good. However, the problems with this aren't exactly apparent, drug companies understand this, but are usually being labelled as inhuman for it.
Why is this exactly? Well lets just say we dump tons of anti HIV drugs on the african population willy nilly to anyone who has aids. Without any means to regulate who takes the drug or (and importantly) in what dose every day, for the rest of their lives (you're on these drugs, side effects and all for the rest of your existence btw) there would be real problems. One of those problems will be the possible emergence of drug resistant HIV strains. Currently, it is known that some HIV strains are already resistant, but if you start giving drugs to a large population with that virus, you are just going to increase the frequency of antiviral genes in the population. As such, you're just going to start programming your very own disaster just waiting to reach your doorstep.
If you think about it really, bombing the countries worst hit by AIDs with drugs isn't going to do much good except cost someone taxs in subsidising the things. For what really? You will probably save some lives, but only to damn more down the track when the resistant strains hit them. In addition, these drugs aren't that effective in the end unless you keep to a very stringent doseage regime, which is hardly practical to expect of a population of millions of infected individuals.
(Note, to clarify, this thread has multiple discussions. Do you think the developed nations should intervene in the outbreaks of HIV, cholera or any other diseases in say Africa? Do you think the media are a bunch of idiots [And I do!] who scaremonger issues like Genetic engineering, SARS etc just at the whim of the moment without actually *educating* and *informing* the public about what to fear properly. The pathogens are just being used as examples of both the above, they are also relevant to the second. When was the last time you heard about TB? What about SARS?)
Comments
But if you're on scary diseases: Ebola. Ebola is a pathogen that reaches 90% mortality rate. Granted, currently the only kinds that infect humans must be transfered via bodily fluids, but the last strain of Ebola that made in outbreak (Here in the US as a matter of fact) was AIRBORNE. Fortunately it wasn't ready to attack humans and only killed monkeys.
Drug resistant malaria (resistant to quinolones) are actually quite common now due to overuse of these drugs.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->But if you're on scary diseases: Ebola. Ebola is a pathogen that reaches 90% mortality rate.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The Yambuku strain of Ebola was that lethal, other strains only are about 50-55%, also Ebola kills too quickly to be any serious pathogen because it eliminates it's susceptible hosts too fast and hence self limits itself.
When i heard about SARS, I was just like: Meh, Pneumonia is worse.
America is creating super-bugs left and right.
What you say!? Certainly not the fine models of investigative reporting we all know and love? Certainly not the purveyors of truth at such venerable institution as Fox news!?
Yeah seriously, the media overplays everything: terrorism, asteriods that have a .01% chance of colliding with us, SARS, the idea that famous people breaking up somehow warrents news...
Anyway, yes, I think its the duty of developed nations to intervine and provide means for these people to be able to treat themselves. Basically I think we should just give them the formula for the drugs they need, and make materials available to them (trade if we aren't feeling so generous) to make their own medication, or just give them the medication, whatever is cheaper/easier for them. Find ways to propogate information such that the public in those nations are more aware of how to combat the illness. Its not like it would even cost us that much, well we basically blew up iraq on a multi-billion dollar whim (don't argue about this here, I know many would dissagre but lets try to stay on topic), helping save lives shouldn't cost nearly as much.
No. We are retarded. Media does it only to get more viewers. If we would be more interested in HIV than hollywood stars breaking up, news would show and tell more about HIV.
I think some medias even choose to tell about really important things and lose all their readers/viewers. The main thing is, none of us are reading any of those because they are boring <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
Drug resistant malaria (resistant to quinolones) are actually quite common now due to overuse of these drugs.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->But if you're on scary diseases: Ebola. Ebola is a pathogen that reaches 90% mortality rate.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The Yambuku strain of Ebola was that lethal, other strains only are about 50-55%, also Ebola kills too quickly to be any serious pathogen because it eliminates it's susceptible hosts too fast and hence self limits itself. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
You've got it wrong. 1/3 of the planet has been exposed to TB, so they will show up as positive on a TB test, but a <i>much</i> smaller percentage of that is actually infected with TB.
Sigh I'll tell you this again.
1/3 of the planet IS infected by an acute infection of TB.
Those that develop the disease (IE have a chronic infection) die of the disease (around 3,000,000). However, the figure is for those who HAVE the pathogen.
TB is an organism that doesn't really show up very well unless you're specifically looking for it.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->1/3 of the planet as in not westren europe and north america <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Actually, TB is prevalent just about everywhere really.
How are we supposed to fight them? Just awareness, or is there some kind of treatment .... D:
It is considered by many to a crisis. Too many doctors today come from an old school where they will hand out antobiotics left and right. I have even heard of antibiotics being given to treat viral infections! (if you didn't know, antibiotics are useless against a virus)
The medical community, now more than ever, has to be aware of the capacity for microorganisms to develop resistance to drugs. I am a pre-medical student, and have attended several conferences dealing with this very issue. There are national and international conventions every year that try to deal with these problems.
Now realize that the above is not only a problem for developed countries with organized healthcare, but it is also a growing problem in undeveloped countries. Increasing aid missions to places like Africa are exposing more populations of microorganisms to the possibility of developing resistance.
Aegeri outlined the problem perfectly. The diseases we really have to fear are the ones that can kill millions of people worldwide. Yes the effects of ebola are graphic and scary, which is why they are hyped in the media and in books and movies (Outbreak). But ebola just kills the host too quickly, and does not have the time to be transmitted throughout a large population.
The fact that you are reading this thread means that you live in a somewhat developed country that has ways of dealing with the global killer diseases. It might seem to you that TB is not a big problem, because people around you are not dying from it. Same with malaria.
Keep in mind that the flu ( numerous strains of influenza) <i>kills</i> a large number of people globally every year. It might be an annoyance to you, but for people who lack treatment it is deadly.
I agree that the media is retarded. They do not accurately represent the state of world affairs.
The question about weather or not we should treat diseases in Africa, knowing that it will come back to bite us in the **** later, is very complicated morally and ethically. For many physicians, the answer is a no brainer. You treat whoever needs care. Many research scientists have a more dispassionate outlook, and say that treatment should be limited and regulated, so as to minimize the possibility of drug resistant organisms.
This is a very difficult question to answer. The dramatic increase of HIV in Africa and southease Asia <i>will</i> affect Europe and America eventually. But these situations are not being dealt with properly.
The mistakes we make now will in the future affect the entire global community.
good luck