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Thalidomide now mostly Mycobacteria and spitting

Dioxin is nasty, nasty stuff (well dioxins as there is more than one molecule that gets referred to as dioxin - they're effectively diamers of polychlorinated biphenols if I remember correctly).

As well as being slow growing, the lack of a bacterial cell wall means it's a lot harder to treat as most antibiotics work by fucking up cell wall production; hence TB & mmmbop disease (=D) require quite unusual theraputic agents like isonaizid or thalidomide to treat them.

Oh and thalidomide is only dodgy for developing foetuses - as far as I know it's a fairly safe drug if you're not pregnant
 
fastandbulbous said:
Dioxin is nasty, nasty stuff (well dioxins as there is more than one molecule that gets referred to as dioxin - they're effectively diamers of polychlorinated biphenols if I remember correctly).

As well as being slow growing, the lack of a bacterial cell wall means it's a lot harder to treat as most antibiotics work by fucking up cell wall production; hence TB & mmmbop disease (=D) require quite unusual theraputic agents like isonaizid or thalidomide to treat them.

Oh and thalidomide is only dodgy for developing foetuses - as far as I know it's a fairly safe drug if you're not pregnant
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Oh, you do. The most toxic one is 2, 3, 7, 8 tetrachlorodibenzodioxane, but there's numerous polychlorinated dibenzo dioxanes and furans that are bad news. They're intercalating agents, stick in the helix of DNA like a nail in a bicycle chain...

Wow, I had no idea that thalidomide had direct anti-TB properties. Learn something new evert day.
 
tcdd tends to be the dioxin most often encountered, it is msot commonly a by product of making chorinated phenoxyacetic acid herbicides 2,4,5-t but not 2,4-d, but similar things are made as by products in triclosan manufacture, one more reson why antibacterial fridges and cutting boards and toothpaste rank up there amongst tetraethyl lead and freons as bad ideas. there should be a thomas midgely award for unforseen consequences.

it is interesting that the antitubercular agent isoniazid, (isonicotinic acid hydrazide) was one of the first MAOI's and lead to all the hydrazide MAOI antidepressant MAOIS. It is also carcinogenic I believe.
 
I thought thalidomide was disgraced because of the fact that they didn't select the corrct isomer when it went into industrial production Apparently the 'correct' isomer is a useful drug with no side effects comparable to the other.
 
zophen said:
I thought thalidomide was disgraced because of the fact that they didn't select the corrct isomer when it went into industrial production Apparently the 'correct' isomer is a useful drug with no side effects comparable to the other.
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true only one enantiomer (isomer) causes the problems but it is irrelevant because the two isomers can interconvert in the body.
 
Tautomerism, I think. The electrons on that ketone moiety adjacent to the chiral center can migrate to make a double bond with the chiral carbon instead. Then the carbons not chiral anymore, and when the electrons go back where they prefer to be, half the time you'll get inversion.
 

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Wow, I had no idea that thalidomide had direct anti-TB properties. Learn something new evert day.
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Thalidomide is used for treating leprosy (sorry Hansons/mmmbop disease =D), not TB as far as I know. These days they use some nasty antibiotics on TB ; things like rifampacin, vancomycin as lots have no effect (cell walls etc - explained previously) and the little bugger is resistant to a fair few of the ones that should work.

No idea how thalidomide causes it's theraputic effects with mmmbop disease, just know it does (imagine lots of modern day lepers sitting nodding like they'd had a truckful of benzos!)
 
it would seem to be indirect as a theraputic in mmmbop disease. probably to do with its anti inflammatory action
Although it has no action against the leprosy bacillus, its value in the treatment of the adverse reactions in this type of leprosy is well established, many leprologists considering it to be superior to any other drug for this purpose.
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lover the term leprologists, now to be known as mmmboppers, doesn't quite have the same gravitas somehow.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=7130490&dopt=Citation
 
Taylor Hanson's a guy?! Oh my God! I have all these magazines!

(Sorry I couldn't resist the Family Guy reference)
 
thalidomide was tried recently for brain cancer, but failed to improve survival times.
 
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