DailyDirt: Good Drugs Everywhere
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
Concern over antibiotic resistance seems to be steadily growing, but some folks are optimistic that science will be able to develop new drugs or other kinds of medicines to replace older, increasingly ineffectual, pharmaceuticals that target the microbes in our bodies. Considering that scientists have only recently started to study the human microbiome, it's possible that medicine could find a whole new categories of treatments that are yet undiscovered. Here are just a few links on finding drugs all around us.- If you've got dirt, there might be some naturally-occurring microbes in your soil that would be useful for producing novel antibiotics or other drugs. Citizen scientists can help collect samples from all over the US, and your backyard soil could be considered a "poor man's rainforest" when it comes to biodiversity. [url]
- Big pharma hasn't even scratched the surface of the possible, potential medicines that could be made. It's estimated that 1 novemdecillion "small molecule" compounds could be biologically active, and scientists have synthesized an extremely small fraction of them. [url]
- Several studies have found pharmaceuticals are turning up in drinking water treatment plants. The concentrations are typically very low, in the nanograms per liter range, but those concentrations could still have an effect on wildlife. These concentrations could also build up over time if the drugs are persistent in the environment. [url]
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: antibiotic resistance, chemistry, compounds, drinking water, drugs, health, medicine, microbiome, pharmaceuticals, soil
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Nothing good about that...
Yes, this is a problem that most are ignoring. Most water treatment plants don't even test for trace prescription drugs.
Worse, people with septic systems are depositing this directly into the ground.
As usual, people assume that something flushed down the toilet goes away forever.
[ link to this | view in thread ]