Is antimicrobial resistance (AMR) the greatest threat to human health? In this episode, we discuss how the misuse and overuse of antimicrobials in humans and agriculture have accelerated bacteria, viruses, and other pathogens’ ability to mutate and develop resistance against the treatments designed to curb and control them.
We talked with molecular biologist Stephen Baker, virologist Ian Goodfellow and infectious disease epidemiologist Caroline Trotter about the magnitude of the problem and how it is not a problem of the future, but of the now. Along the way, we discuss whether post COVID19, are we in a better position now to deal with the next pandemic? Can we predict when it might happen? And if it does happen, will we deal with it any differently?
This episode was produced by Nick Saffell, James Dolan, Naomi Clements-Brod and Annie Thwaite.
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Timestamps:
[00:00] - Introductions
[01:10] - A bit about the guests’ research
[02:03] - What are antimicrobials and what is antimicrobial resistance (AMR)?
[03:00] - How do antimicrobials kill bacteria? How do the chemicals interact and stop a process? How were they discovered?
[04:20] - Antibiotic means anti-life. How long have they been around?
[05:10] - How does the process of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) work?
[06:40] - What are the consequences of antimicrobial resistance? The example of drug-resistant typhoid
[08:50] - How do you use vaccines to prevent diseases like drug-resistant typhoid? Vaccines, sanitation, and how vaccination is implemented and reformulated.
[10:15] - Is antimicrobial resistance (AMR) the greatest threat to human health? Do we underestimate the impact that antibiotics have had?
[11:15] - Do we understand the scale of the resistance out there? What about mortality and morbidity because of antimicrobial resistance?
[13:00] - Antimicrobial resistance-specific diseases. What about meningitis? The power of early action?
[13:45] - The magnitude of the problem. The terrifying realisation that antimicrobials are irrelevant in some countries because of the sheer amount of biomass of drug resistance out there.
[15:00] - The overuse of antimicrobrials, human microbiome and the community of bacteria that live in your body.
[15:50] - Does the human microbiome recover from an antibiotic. How antibiotics work - basically an atomic bomb going off.
[17:00] - Do we have a full picture of how important a microbiome is. Links to obesity and the long-term effects of early exposure to antibiotics.
[17:45] - What is the impact of microbiome variation on vaccines?
[19:10] - Have we misused antibiotics? Is this on us? Or is inevitable?
[19:45] - Resistance is inevitable. Resistance is reported within two years of a drug being licensed and used. We created is this arms race. This will be known as the antimicrobial era.
[21:05] - Do we need a better diagnosis before we administer antimicrobials?
[21:45] - The volume use of antimicrobials - healthcare vs agriculture.
[22:35] - The overuse of antimicrobials. gentamicin being spread on...
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