h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A535592

OK. This is a topic that was the basis for my PhD so I thought h2g2 should know about it. Its a fairly important topic in medicine too at the moment.
The article goes through the history and discovery of antibiotics, covers how they work and then goes on to explain why and how bacteria become resistant to the drugs we inflict upon them. It then goes through a few ways we might get around this problem. Hopefully its pretty comprehensive (its certainly long enough <phew&gt.
It also seems to neatly fit with a few articles that are either already edited or pending so I think it would make a valuable addition to the guide.

Hope you like it. Tell me if its too technical.

This entry is REALLY interesting, comprehensive and well written. It gets my very enthusiastic vote! Wonderful ... and useful ... and nice and easy to understand!

Thanks Sal

Looking good. Here's a few comments from a researcher who has the misfortune of being a medical writer/editor in real life:

1) You imply that pneumonia and meningitis are only caused by bacteria, when in fact there are numerous viral versions as well.

2) While the term chemotherapeutic makes sense to you and I, it is technical jargon that is often misinterpreted by lay people (who tend to immediately associate it with cancer therapy). I'd suggest using words more readily understood by the average reader, like "medicine" or even "pharmaceutical".

3) In your discussion of the ways of combatting abx resistance, you left out one of the main methods currently being pushed (at least here in the US) -- reduction in unecessary abx use, especially for upper respiratory infections (including otitis).


Mikey

This was great... it gets my hearty endorsement. I was just reading an interesting review on the subject. In addition, its been featured recently in Scientific American as well as the NY Times... so its very timely (obviously).
Here in the US there has been a dramatic move away from overuse of antibiotics, as you describe in the UK.
cheers-
Ari

Hello,

Nicely done. I think this should have no real problem making it the edited guide. I particularly like the way you describe the various types of antibiotics based on what they attack. Pretty cool.

Anyway, let me give just a few little comments:
1. I think you should mention that the malaria-fighter derived from the bark is Quinine, which was only really tolerable as part of tonic water, which went really well with gin.

2. I'm a little bit confused. Is every class of antibiotics derived from penicillin? It seems like a lot of the resistance was only to penicillin-style structures, so why are the other types affected? Actually, I need to read it over again.

3. I don't remember what my third point was. Oh yeah, nice entry. You need to write more like these for the Guide.

Yours,
Jake

Cheers for the comments guys, nice to hear you like it. I was a bit concerned about the implication that meningitis and pnemonia being only caused by bacteria myself, I wondered if someone would comment so that will be changed. I thought I'd dealt with abx (nice abbreviation much easier to type ) being used onlty when necessary in the last section but seeing as it isn't clear I'll put something in. I'll also change the use of chemotherapy as you're right it is probably misleading to the layman.
I'll also maention Quinine Mr. Cogito - actually I didn't know that was the active agent in cinchona bark, but now I do .
No, not all antibiotics are penicillin based, if they were, Gram Negative infections such as TB would be untreatable. I though that was clear . Beta lactamases are jsut the most famous case so I thought I'd focus on that, the pumping mechanisms tto get rid of other types is gone into.
Cheers for the comment Mr. Cogito, I noticed that no article has been done on Vitamins for the guide when I wrote this so that'll be my next project I think .
I'll let you know when I've made the changes.

Ok, that's all the issues mentioned above dealt with, further comments appreciated.

Somewhere else, someone mentioned that it was a bit heavy. I suppose it is, but that's what happens when you plagiarise your own PhD thesis I suppose Not a subject that lends itself to too much humour. My last article was much better on that front .

Hey, Orcus -- what field are you doing your phD in -- I just finished the proposal for my epidemiology PhD today myself.

As far as making it a little more accessible to the average layperson, how about including a kind of mock case history that goes along with it? I often write those for my medical journal articles, as it can be a good way of tying all the facts together into a more tangible story.


Mikey

This article seems quite informative and accessible to me. My biological sciences are abysmal, so I may actually be a good test case.

I would rank this article as somewhere on the folksy side of the Scientific American standard which makes it fairly reader friendly. And I really don't miss the SA wriggley-tail key-block headed muted primary colored pseudo-diagramitic molecules fighting their way past the staunchly marshalled cell barrier sort of drawings that don't do much more than suggest that there is no way to explain the concepts to non-specialists other than to try to look more mature than Walt Disney class room science features. (I wouldn't mind a talking microbe in the corner though.)

I think you do what your title suggests that you are trying to do.

I noticed one awkward paragraph break without a space between, in the first third of the article. If you want to catch that, I'll feel just like the editor who had to check a punctuation mark in red pencil to prove that he was really doing his job.

Nice clear writing. Well done.

Barton

Definitely an informative article.

If I had to suggest an area to clarify, I suppose one possible thing that less scientifically educated people might be confused about (before they read the article, rather than as a result of reading it) is the distiction between antibiotics and antibacterials in general.

I presume that public awareness of the existence of antibacterials is quite high, given the large amount of pushy advertising these days of antibacterial products, many of which seem quite unnecessary, such as impregnated distbin liners, or even with a possible downside from the overuse of products such as antibacterial hand cleaners.

Especially given the length of the article already, I understand you can't cover everything, but maybe if there was a paragraph distinguishing between antibiotics, antibacterials, and antiseptics, it might help the lay reader (and provide a good point to link to a potential future article covering the pros and cons of antibacterials.)

The start of the second subsection, mentioning antibacterials, malaria, antimicrobials and antibiotics within a short distance might blur things a little for someone with limited knowledge.

Mikey, my field is actually organic chemistry, this is mostly taken from my thesis intro (the most intersting bit - and this is probably the only way anyone is ever going to read it). I passed my PhD in 1997 I work in a different medicinal area now (possible new drug therapy for manic depression).
Praise for not putting a diagram in, , surprised but flattered that you think its explained well Barton .
To be honest, this was hard work and I'd rather not add too much more if you don't mind, I'm not a medic so a mock case study wouldn't be too easy for me . I tried to avoid going too much into the exact definition of antibiotic (anti-life) as to your average Joe antibiotic tends to mean penicillin - ie. antibacterial, but if you really think it necessary I can put a paragraph in. Would it require going into the differences between bacteria, viruses and trypansomal parasites though? Not sure if this is really the point of the article.

I'll have a think about it.

Without trying to cause a topic drift I think the companies pushing antibacterial hand cleansers and the like are being wholly irresponsible . Some of these companies have pharmaceutical divisions and should know better. Do they really want drug resistance to spread to the home?

Thanks again for the comments.

Barton, is this missing paragraph break the one that starts with 'In addition...'? If so, this was a deliberate line break just to make the paragraph easier to read, does it really look awkward? If so I'll change it.

The referenced bacteriophage article does cover the bacteria/virus distinction, so I guess you could just point out that that's where more information is available on that topic. Trying to further clarify the diferences between bacteria, funguses and various eukaryotic nasties for a complete layman audience might be rather harder, and really does require a separate article in itself.

I'm quite tempted to put something together on the various anti-xxxx agents in general.

Actually I think I'll just put a footnote in explaining that antibiotic in this article refers specifically to antibacterial agents. That should do I think.

Footnote added. Go for it Potholer, I'd love to read such an article but I should do a search first, I've read some stuff by Wumbeevil and Crescent (I think) that cut pretty close to this topic.

youdon't seemto have mentioned the 2 min causes for antibiotic resistant bacteria, doctors and patients, and their bad behaviour that causes it.

Er.. you didn't read the sections at the end then?
Ie. Limit the use of antibiotics... and
COMPLETE THE COURSE!

Besides, their bad behaviour may have accelerated it but they most certainly didn't cause it. Bacteria have always possessed this ability and even if doctors and patients had behaved sensibly, the evolutionary pressure to become resistant would still be there.

Yes, that was where I was seeing it. I suspect the real problem then is that your line break and my screen size is what was causing it to look bad. *I* would take it out and let the auto wordwrap take care of what it is supposed to. For me, with the current screen size, it looked strange to have the line wrap at 2/3 of the line length. It could get better or worse depending on how it was viewed. As I said, it's a minor thing and I'm not overly concerned.

Barton.

Ha well, its not that hugely important to me. It looks Ok on my browser but then most aren't using my browser, I shall amend it