
Antifungal resistance is here - xoa
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/11/when-tulips-kill/574489/
======
xoa
This is a shitty, clickbait title which I'm sorry about, but the article
itself is decent though verbose. And the subject matter itself seems important
enough to be worth overlooking some presentation issues, and deserves public
attention, even if it's not new to many here. I follow medical literature
reasonably closely for a layman (I have a cousin finishing their residency
soon) but while antibiotic resistance and the links to agriculture has gotten
a lot of discussion and begun to reach the public at last, this is the first
time I can remember hearing about this particular link to agriculture and
triazole resistance. I remember reading about fungal infections a number of
times over the years as a difficult class of infections, but I had assumed
that no human compatible compounds were used there because they didn't boost
animal size and there were hundreds of human (well probably mammal in general)
bio-incompatible ones that were fine with plants.

This probably shouldn't be surprising but it's still worrisome given how few
compounds there are for medical use even compared to antibiotics. At least in
America for whatever reason apparently agricultural triazole use is still
relatively low though increasing, so perhaps it could still be nipped in the
bud so to speak.

~~~
sevensor
> This is a shitty, clickbait title which I'm sorry about,

It's a really unfortunate strategy the _Atlantic_ has taken. They do the same
thing on the cover of the print magazine, choosing the most provocative thing
they can come up with. It's one of the reasons I stopped renewing my
subscription. The other being that they stopped accepting checks for
subscriptions. I won't stand for opt-out credit card renewals on magazines.
It's an abusive practice. All this makes me sad because the _Atlantic_ 's
writers still produce good articles like this one, but they're running the
rest of the magazine in the worst possible way.

~~~
xoa
> _I won 't stand for opt-out credit card renewals on magazines_

You are entirely morally justified in this, and even though a lot of consumer
facing businesses find actual checks themselves troublesome at scale that's
not excuse not to offer one-time CC transactions at least (and preferably a
full range of e-payment methods). FWIW though there is a sort of hack a lot of
cards offer that can be helpful for this sort of service (at least when you
find it too important to be practical to just write off): virtual card
numbers. They go under different branding at different places, Bank of America
for example calls it "Shop Safe" or something like that IIRC. Effectively
though you access the card provider's tool, put in a balance and expiration
date, and it then generates a credit card number (including 'security code')
that has that expiration and balance, and of course can be trivially cancelled
at will. You can use it anywhere any other credit card would work. That allows
creating a maximum budget payment upfront that you can then entirely forget
about, it won't auto-rollover, and it can never be charged more then the
balance set. I think the way most (all?) places have it set up the VCC also
binds on first use, so even if it was leaked it can't be utilized anywhere
else.

It's a useful tool for this sort of situation since it puts the buyer back in
the driver's seat. Rather then having to fight to cancel something, it's up to
them to get more money out of you since they don't actually have a real card.
Can also be handy for buying online from places you're not 100% confident in,
you can set a balance at just the price and at least know your loss is limited
there. Regrettably I don't know of any places that make this nearly as central
and easy a feature as it should be, and not all banks offer it, but it comes
in handy sometimes anyway.

~~~
sp332
Legally, you would still owe them money for the continued subscription even if
you cancel a specific credit card. It's just that usually they take the hint
and cancel the subscription if they can't collect.

------
Mvandenbergh
“Agriculture has almost 300 compounds they can use on fungi,” he tells me. “In
medicine, we have four. And they use the four that we also use, because they
work so well.”

They're also very safe for humans, other mammals, and other animals. Logically
something that has been cleared for humans to ingest or apply to themselves in
high doses deliberately is going to have a very benign safety profile when
applied to non-food plants in your garden.

------
aurizon
This is a real menace to millions of people who get Aspergillosis. The wide us
of these compounds is going to manifest in resistance to many fungal
infections of many kinds.

~~~
jonathanjaeger
There are a couple biotech companies working on less resistant drugs for
Aspergillosis (such as Scynexis and Cidara Therapeutics). That being said,
they're just in trials, and probably 2-4 years from commercialization.

~~~
ohiovr
How long till it ends up in the gardening section of lowes?

~~~
jcl
If it's specific to Aspergillis, maybe never? The article says that farmers
only really want antifungals that prevent plant diseases -- Aspergillis is an
"accidental bystander".

------
DoctorOetker
it will be a real bummer the generalized pattern of harmful organism
developing resistance in commercial setting as opposed to medical setting
(like antifungal resistance, or antibiotic resistance) turns out to be "The
Great Filter" of life in the universe. Hopefully we will learn our lesson
after a couple of instances and rigorously ban non-medical use of drugs
reserved for human medical use.

------
chiefalchemist
> "About a decade ago, he and some of his colleagues faced a diagnostic
> puzzle. Some of their patients were sicker than they ought to be, but there
> was no clear connection to a cause."

Odd as this might sound, disease is often a symptom. The root problem being a
compromised immune system. The human immune system is robust. It's had many
centuries and many generations to perfect its craft.

But modern life (with its associated chemicals and other factors that are
historically abnormal) is bad - and getting worse? - for the immune system. No
other species, that I'm aware of, is so willing to put itself in harm's way.
Perhaps humans have out smarted evolution to the point of ending the species'
reign?

Years ago there was a TV advert, something about "it's not nice to fool Mother
Nature." Seems like that tongue in cheek tag line isn't so funny after all.

------
admax88q
Nausicaa becoming more relevant.

------
pighive
For some reason I read it as ‘anti-frugal’ and started reason my thinking.
Daah!

