Nacario's Digital Scrapbook

• Steve Palumbi has recorded the amount of money that has been spent on disease and pesticide treatment. The total amount ranges from $30-50 billion dollars a year.
• Methods of battling these bugs(& bacteria) is by exposing them with a drug, and suddenly switching drugs to kill off the remaining bugs that maybe resistant to the previous drug.
• Strong and expensive drugs have been available to doctors for some time now for certain illnesses. However if the bacteria grows immune to a certain drug, than the illness may become incurable.
• This also applies to crops, weeds and insects that grow immunities too pesticides will need stronger pesticides to kill them=more money to pay for pesticides.

• Plamubi suggests the use of drugs in a more effective and cost reductive way by hitting a disease/pest hard, but at the same time smartly.
• This relates to our evolution unit because natural selection occurs. Bacteria that are immune to a particular drug had grown an immunity due to natural selection which weeded out those who did not have an immunity to that particular drug. Those bacterium that survived with a partial immunity to a single drug dominated and reproduced more, and the entire population would have an immunity to a particular drug over time.
  

I think that this article brings up a very important issue, especially in today's economy. Despite old news, the article tells us how much money is being used in the development of drugs/pesticides that in long term give little to no results. Med care is Obama's top priority and decided to spend billions on it. However, reading this article I do not feel that this particular sector in medical care will benefit. To have effective drugs and pesticides, we must use them smartly. We need to strike hard and fast, then either switch drugs or suspend treatment for sometime.