Medical advancements have played a huge part in human history. Since 1877 the knowledge of antibiotics has expanded greatly. Antibiotics are constantly needed and new developments are crucial to human society. This topic should be known by all humans because antibiotics can be the difference of life and death. This industry and it’s success alters the health of many humans. Things like polio, chicken pox and measles are no longer taking lives. As new sicknesses form we need new antibiotics to counteract the new sicknesses. If we allow the demise of this industry, we will allow the demise of human health. Antibiotics began in the laboratory through scientist’s discoveries. Then many strides and improvements during the mid 1900’s caused a change within the production. “These improvements came in the early 1940s when Howard Florey and associates discovered a new strain of Penicillium, which produced high yields of penicillin. This allowed large-scale production of penicillin, which helped launch the modern antibiotics industry.” (Romanowski ) The modern antibiotics industry as we know it is much different than it began. The first company to produce antibiotics as we know it today, was Pfizer. Their success really began when they mass produced citric acid through fermentation. Then, in 1941,
“Pfizer responds to an appeal from the United States Government to expedite the manufacture of penicillin to treat Allied soldiers fighting in World War II. Pfizer's senior management invests millions of dollars, putting their own assets as Pfizer stockholders at stake, to buy the equipment and facilities needed for this novel process of deep-tank fermentation. Pfizer purchases a nearby vacant ice plant, and employees work around the clock to ...
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...s we can save lives across the country and even the world. Second, we must educate people of the issue. They must take antibiotics correctly and try not to take antibiotics unless they must. This allows antibiotics we do have to work longer by not allowing bacteria to become immune to them. Lastly, American greed and an extreme capitalist mindset must be put aside. Businesses need to begin to produce antibiotics unselfishly until we have gotten out of the lull we are currently in. Once we have gotten ourselves out of this situation and companies go back to researching antibiotics for bacterial infections regularly, they can begin to research chronic diseases as well. But until then we must tackle the task at hand together. Working with one another by being smart consumers to help the producers alongside producers whose main goal isn’t money but helping the consumer.
According to USA Today, U.S. doctors are prescribing enough antibiotics to give to 4 out of 5 Americans every year, an alarming pace that suggests they are being excruciatingly overused. In fact, Dr. Aunna Pourang from MD states, “to give you an idea of how high the pressure is to prescribe antibiotics, I didn’t get a job once because during the interview I told the lead physician that I only prescribe antibiotic prescriptions when they are warranted.” The development and widespread obsession of antibiotics, or drugs that kill bacteria and thereby reduce infection, has helped billions of people live longer, healthier lives. Unfortunately, the more we rely on and abuse antibiotics, the more bacteria develop resistance to them, which makes treating infections that much more challenging and leads to the growth of drug-resistant strains of bacteria. Research from the Center of Disease Control found that two million people in the United States become infected with antibiotic resistant bacteria, while 23,000 people die from such infections each year. Americans often aren’t informed on the power of the human body and rush to assumptions when perfection isn’t present. In a nutshell, the obsession of antibiotics is quite deadly and needs to be addressed before it’s too
In the business of drug production over the years, there have been astronomical gains in the technology of pharmaceutical drugs. More and more drugs are being made for diseases and viruses each day, and there are many more drugs still undergoing research and testing. These "miracle" drugs are expensive, however, and many Americans cannot afford these prices.
In several cases, Nobel Peace Prizes were given to the scientists who contributed to public health through antibiotics. The importance and significance of antibiotics in our lives are emphasized through those beginning statements made by the author. Because of the list of achievements that antibiotics have brought to people throughout history, I, as a reader, was left impressed by the topic. Starting the article in such a positive manner gives the reader a good attitude and an open mind when reading the rest of the article which is more controversial. The tone that Carroll used throughout the article left me as a reader impressed when I finished reading. Learning that before antibiotics, the top cause of death in the United States was germs made me realize the importance of antibiotics to our country when they are used properly. Although I understand that antibiotic resistance is real, I have never had a first-hand experience with an antibiotic not being able to fight a bacterial infection. In my mind, Carroll purposefully gave several examples of the importance of antibiotics to our country to emphasize that the rest of the article was not against
This fact validates the incentive pharmaceutical companies have to get a patent and acquire more power. Pfizer encourages R&D because of the incentives and a desire to obtain patents to receive more profit. Pfizer has to promote itself to be successful, creating a brand image that consumers will trust. If the company can advertise successfully, more consumers will purchase their products. Pfizer must also be generating products efficiently in order to save and use existing resources, while manufacturing their products at low costs to stay competitive....
Throughout history disease has run rampant taking many lives with every passing day. Finding a cure or even just a tool in the battle has been the main focus of scientist throughout time. This focus is what brought us the discovery of antibiotics. Over the years antibiotics have been misused by patients, over prescribed by physicians and have led to resistant strains of bacteria.
Bacteria that is resistant to antibiotics is a major problem not only for the United States, but worldwide. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2012) the cause is related to “widespread overuse, as well as inappropriate use, of antibiotics that is fueling antibiotic resistance”. According to World Health Organization (2013) resistance is a global concern for several reasons; it impedes the control of infectious diseases, increases healthcare costs, and the death rate for patients with resistant bacterial infections is twice of those with non-resistant bacterial infections.
A Comparison of the Laboratory and Industrial Processes When going through the process of fermentation in a laboratory they use certain methods to achieve their goals and some of the methods that they use are completely different from the ones that are used in the industry of fermentation. A fermenter is a container that maintains optimum conditions needed to grow a particular organism I will be using different criteria’s to compare the laboratory and industrial process of fermentation in this assignment; some of them are listed below: * Equipment Used * The Quantity of the Product * Method Used * Quality of the Product Before I get right on into the assignment I will firstly talk about penicillin is and what it is used for today in our society because penicillin will come up. Penicillin was discovered by Alexander Fleming in 1929 and penicillin is one of the earliest discovered and widely used antibiotic agents, derived from the penecillium mold and the use of penecillium did not begin until the 1940s. Penicillin kills bacteria by interfering with the ability to synthesis the cell wall and this will disallow it from splitting and reproducing and it will only lengthen longer Below are is a table that shows the most obvious differences in fermentation in a laboratory and fermentation in the scientific industry: Laboratory Fermentation: Industry Fermentation: It is a batch culture They use a Ph sensor The Ph level is not being controlled The equipment used is more expensive The temperature is not being measured They use a thermometer The yeast population isn’t been given O² They equip the fermenter with an exit gas and an exit liquid flow The food supply is not being replenished They also equip it with a antifoam and gas flow It also has a dissolved O² sensor Equipped with an Sparser In industry they have a fresh media feed
Penicillin is an antibiotic that kills bacteria, sufficiently treating any injuries. This drug was invented before the war, but had its major outbreak during World War II. Once scientists discovered the potential of penicillin, they aggressively started to pursue methods to mass produce the drug. The mass production of penicillin saved many American lives and led to our victory during World War II.
Over the years humans have tried every possibility to overcome the health problems, spread of epidemics and infections, disease control and have worked towards a healthy society free of disease and health problems. They have succeeded to a great extent. The book “Good germs, bad germs” describes that though the life expectancy is now far more as it was in previous eras. Epidemic problems and infectious diseases are now getting lesser and lesser and humans are being treated successfully. The hygienic conditions have also been improved so as to ensure least growth of microbes, germs, parasites and bacteria. Antibiotics have been invented to address diseases and infections caused by bacteria and viruses. With all these substantial efforts the biologists, physicians and scientists have triggered another epidemic which is even more severe. They have killed those microbes and bacterial species which were human friendly and as a result of either their disruption or mutation, pathogenic bacteria have even become more active and resistant to treatments. This has led to increased ineffectiveness of antibiotic drugs, low immunity and various infections and inflammatory diseases. The chlorinated water for drinking and food processing along with excessive hygienic conditions indicates our fight against these bacteria and germs. Further, these antibiotics are even given to the livestock which becomes our food and as result many of their resistant germs end up in our digestive tract and other organs. Thus, the war against microbes through excessive cleanliness and use of antibiotics has resulted in antibiotic resistance among humans, which has become one of the prominent problems of medical science
...f ivermectin in the first place. Furthermore, we wouldn’t want to risk Merck going out of business, as it seems they had the capability to produce many useful medications. They’d already proved to make six useful, safe, and powerful drugs—the medical world wouldn’t want to lose such able creators. The best choice, therefore, would have Merck contributing to the research, but include other pharmaceutical companies and private donors to help with the financial and personnel costs. This funding would allow Merck and the other companies to sell at low costs, or even give, the medication to those who desperately need it. In order to implement such this type of plan, Merck would have to take the lead. They would have to actively seek out organizations, companies and private donors and explain the wonderful consequences for huge populations with the success of ivermectin.
In the last decade, the number of prescriptions for antibiotics has increases. Even though, antibiotics are helpful, an excess amount of antibiotics can be dangerous. Quite often antibiotics are wrongly prescribed to cure viruses when they are meant to target bacteria. Antibiotics are a type of medicine that is prone to kill microorganisms, or bacteria. By examining the PBS documentary Hunting the Nightmare Bacteria and the article “U.S. government taps GlaxoSmithKline for New Antibiotics” by Ben Hirschler as well as a few other articles can help depict the problem that is of doctors prescribing antibiotics wrongly or excessively, which can led to becoming harmful to the body.
In 1891, George Merck established the first Merck & Co in the United States. The store was originally set up as an extension of his family’s drugstore and pharmaceutical factory which was created in 1668 by Friedrich J. Merck in Darmstadt, Germany. Due to the strained relationship between the United States and Germany during World War I, Merck & Co. was severed from its parent company in 1917 by the United States Government. In May 9, 1919, under government supervision, Merck put up for public auction 80% of their shares and finally concluded its separation from E. Merck in Darmstadt. 1953 brought on a new opportunity for Merck when it merged with Sharp & Dohme; a local Baltimore based company. This new partnership increased Merck’s customer based and resources. A decade late...
Alexander Fleming started the history of antibiotics in the 1920's with his discovery of penicillin.When penicillin was first discovered and used widely, it was touted as a wonder drug, and consequently was used as one.Though not necessarily harmful to the patient penicillin was used for much more infections than it was able to combat.Today the same practice is observed in the medical profession, however at this point it is due more to the detriment of an uneducated public.Studies have been carried out that show the huge over usage of antibiotics.In the seventies Soyka et al, concluded, "60% of physicians surveyed gave antibiotics for the treatment of the common cold."[3], and by common knowledge the common cold is a virus, something that cannot be treated by an antibiotic.Nyquist
Luckily however, South Africa has the most active surveillance of antibiotic resistance of any other African country (SAMJ, 2011), so this country has a strong fighting-chance in stopping ‘the rise of the Superbug’. The South African government must take drastic measures in promoting effective antibiotic use as we cannot revert to a Pre-WW2 scenario of non-effective antibiotics!
The discovery of antibiotics is attributed to Alexander Fleming who discovered the first antibiotic to be commercially used (Penicillin) in approximately 1928. An antibiotic, also known as an antimicrobial, is a medication that is taken in order to either destroy or slow the growth rate of bacteria. Antibiotics are integral to the success of many medical practises, such as; surgical procedures, organ transplants, the treatment of cancer and the treatment of the critically ill. (Ramanan Laxminarayan, 2013)