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A Super-State Is Being Created Without Consent Of The People, Warns Polish MEP

A Super-State Is Being Created Without Consent Of The People, Warns Polish MEP

Authored by Olivier Bault via Remix News,

The public is not…

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A Super-State Is Being Created Without Consent Of The People, Warns Polish MEP

Authored by Olivier Bault via Remix News,

The public is not supposed to notice that a putsch is about to take place, that the European Union as a community of sovereign states is being abolished and a superstate is being created without any consent of the people, says Polish MEP Jacek Saryusz-Wolski

The European Parliament’s Constitutional Affairs Committee adopted a resolution on Oct. 25 with a report carrying far-reaching treaty changes drafted by the so-called Verhofstadt Group, a team led by the Belgian Eurofederalist Guy Verhofstadt.

The plenary vote is planned for Nov. 22 and will formally trigger the procedure to amend the existing treaties.

Polish MEP Jacek Saryusz-Wolski, who was a member of this Verhofstadt Group until July, explains in this exclusive interview with Remix News why this latest attempt to transform the European Union into an undemocratic superstate, which he describes as a silent putsch with communist roots, has a real chance to succeed if it is not stopped fast.

* * *

There have been elections in Poland, and we know that a new government will probably be formed by the Civic Coalition together with the Third Way and the New Left. Does this mean that Poland will now support the far-reaching changes to the EU treaties proposed by the left and center-right in the European Parliament?

I prefer to speak in the conditional because as of today, the formation of a government by the opposition is likely, but not a foregone conclusion. However, if this does happen, it is indeed true that Poland can no longer be expected to block these changes in the way the EU functions.

The Polish opposition, at the stage of parliamentary work, supported these changes, both through the votes of the representatives of their political groups in the team of co-rapporteurs of the report, which we colloquially call the Verhofstadt Group and which I left in July in protest, and with their votes in the Constitutional Affairs Committee, and also in the plenary voting.

As for the plenary votes, in the Report on Parliamentarianism, European Citizenship, and Democracy, where there was an amendment to eliminate the Member States’ veto right, the opposition voted to eliminate this right of veto.

During the vote in the European Parliament’s Committee on Constitutional Affairs on Oct. 25, the representatives of these Polish parties expressed their support in principle for this plan to create a superstate and reduce the role of the member states to that of German-style “Länder.”

So, it is almost certain that if these three parties form a government headed by Donald Tusk in Poland, they will support these changes.

Assuming this is what is going to happen, can these changes be blocked by smaller countries such as Hungary and Slovakia, whose new prime minister, Robert Fico, has expressed his fierce opposition to the elimination of the veto right?

We have to consider the experience with the Constitutional Treaty. There were many resisters and eventually, under pressure and blackmail, even the most resistant, Britain, agreed. This treaty was only blocked by two referendums, in the Netherlands and France. It is only then that this treaty was abandoned. However, it was eventually adopted in a truncated form and rebadged as the Lisbon Treaty. So, the history of the Constitutional Treaty proves that even the most resistant give way and yield under pressure over time.

Here, the pressure is very great, and the tools the European Commission has at its disposal are much more powerful than in the days of trying to push through the Constitutional Treaty. Back then, the Commission could not block funds, as it does today. It could not put a member state up against a wall on contrived charges concerning the so-called rule of law, for example.

The arsenal of means of extortion and blackmail is much larger today and it is actively used. France’s Marine Le Pen said Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni did not want to vote for the immigration and relocation package, believing that a naval blockade was needed, not this type of ineffective measure. However, she was threatened that a tranche of the Italian recovery funds would be blocked and she bowed to the pressure since she risked, as we know, an attack by financial markets on Italy.

Italians are indeed familiar with this from 2011. But you said you left the so-called Verhofstadt Group, i.e., the team working on the report on proposals of the European Parliament for the amendment of the treaties, in an act of protest. An act of protest against what?

Against this final formula and the lack of respect for the consensus principle. We worked on the report from July 2022 to July 2023. It was hundreds of hours of negotiations. There were six representatives of six political groups, including myself on behalf of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group. The Identity & Democracy group was not allowed in.

Why?

This is the so-called “cordon sanitaire” policy enforced by the other groups, from the center-right EPP to the far left. As for the six rapporteurs, the Conference of Presidents decided that there were to be six co-rapporteurs, i.e., the principle of consensus was to apply. This means that everyone was expected to agree on the final version.

As one of those six co-rapporteurs, I have protested various solutions, unfortunately unsuccessfully. I have proposed other solutions, such as a CJEU Subsidiarity Chamber composed of the Presidents of the National Constitutional Courts, or a red card procedure in which half of the national parliaments could stop legislation in the European Commission, etc.

This was all rejected, and the “consensus of six co-rapporteurs” principle was turned into a “consensus minus one.” In other words, the five other political groups agreed on matters between themselves, and the ECR was eventually also placed outside the cordon sanitaire.

Therefore, I slammed the door on behalf of my group.

In its draft resolution that deals precisely with these proposals for treaty changes, the European Parliament cites the so-called Conference on the Future of Europe as the source of these ideas. Doesn’t that mean that there is a democratic procedure behind these proposed changes? It was a citizen consultation after all, wasn’t it?

Absolutely not.

...

It is worth noting that in the European Parliament’s resolution, its authors refer to the Ventotene Manifesto of Altiero Spinelli, an Italian Trotskyist communist. His manifesto is cited first, with Schuman’s declaration coming in second. This clearly shows that this idea of amending the EU treaty is rooted in the communist Marxist vision for Europe, where nation-states are being abolished and where democracy is basically non-existent.

Just read what Spinelli wrote on the subject. Schuman proclaimed that his idea was not to bring countries together to create a superstate, and the idea of the Union as a superstate has its origin in the concepts Spinelli exposed in the Ventotene Manifesto.

It says that “it derives its vision and certainty of what must be done from the knowledge that it represents the deepest needs of modern society and not from any previous recognition by popular will, as yet inexistent. In this way, it issues the basic guidelines of the new order, the first social discipline directed to the unformed masses. By this dictatorship of the revolutionary party a new State will be formed, and around this State new, genuine democracy will grow.”

This is pure Bolshevism!

This future democracy, as in communism, is to be led by the dictatorship of revolutionary parties.

The Ventotene Manifesto further says that it will be a stable federal state with a European army, etc.

Let’s be clear: This project to reform the EU treaties is communist and it rejects Schuman’s Christian-democratic concept. The Spinelli Group, which co-authored the proposals, is an informal group in the European Parliament with dozens of MEPs. They claim to be federalists, but their project is actually anti-federalist.

...

Yes. And once it is adopted, there will be no more need to force the will of some member states when it can be bypassed. This is a curiosity, because nowhere in any international organization is there such a thing, that a statutory, constitutional act of an organization is adopted other than unanimously.

...

This is a kind of group of political ideologues, some of whom I would even call fanatics, who want to build a superstate on the ruins of nation-states, where a political oligarchy will rule unaccountably and escape the democratic control of citizens.

...

In short, it is the Union that will decide what are the powers and scope of sovereignty of the states, and not the opposite. Thus, sovereignty within the European Union would no longer reside in the member states but in the Union itself, and the former would be subordinated.

Incidentally, the euro currency is to become mandatory for all EU members. That is also why I am talking about the threat of the member states becoming simple “Länder”: They will be just European Union states just as there are German states.

...

So what is your forecast? Does the new treaty have enough support in the big EU countries and will it simply be imposed on the rest?

First, it will pass in the European Parliament. Roughly judging by previous votes, I predict that it should be about 330 votes “for” and 170 “against.” That is what previous votes show, such as on the complete elimination of the veto right, which is envisioned in another report voted on in the European Parliament in September.

...

That is the intention, by the way, to do it in-house, in a discreet way. The public is not supposed to notice that a putsch is about to take place, that the European Union as a community of sovereign states is being abolished and a superstate is being created without any consent of the people, and that the member states are being reduced to the role of German states.

...

The problem is that Europe has been hijacked, it has been stolen. Just as Zeus, in the form of a bull, abducted Europe, left-liberal circles have taken possession of something that was a concept with a Christian genesis, something that was founded on the principle of subsidiarity, which, by the way, is derived from the Church’s social teaching. This something is being transformed by them into a project with communist roots. The authors of the European Parliament’s draft resolution and report do not even hide this.

Read the full shocking interview here...

Tyler Durden Tue, 10/31/2023 - 03:30

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International

AUD/USD Technical: Potential residual push down within bullish reversal configuration

The price actions of AUD/USD have started to oscillate within an impending “Descending Wedge” bullish reversal configuration. The emergence of the…

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October 31, 2023

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  • The price actions of AUD/USD have started to oscillate within an impending “Descending Wedge” bullish reversal configuration.
  • The emergence of the “Descending Wedge” coupled with positive reading seen in the daily RSI momentum indicator indicates its current medium-term downtrend phase from the 3 February 2023 high may be coming to its tail-end.
  • In the short term, the AUD/USD is at risk of staging a potential residual push down to retest the lower boundary of the “Descending Wedge” acting as support at 0.6270/6260.
  • Watch the key short-term resistance at 0.6395 on the AUD/USD.

This is a follow-up analysis of our prior report, “AUD/USD is under downside pressure below 0.6510 as RBA looms” published on 5 September 2023. Click here for a recap.

The price actions of AUD/USD have indeed continued to churn lower towards 0.6310 support as highlighted in our last report.

It printed a recent intraday low of 0.6270 last Thursday, 26 October, and staged a bounce of +113 pips to hit a high of 0.6384 yesterday, 30 October (US session) as we await key external economic data out from China, the NBS Manufacturing and Non-Manufacturing PMI data for October that may impact the movements of the AUD/USD due to Australia’s close trading ties with China.

Consensus estimates have indicated another month of slow recovery in manufacturing and services activities in China for October, but the manufacturing PMI has slipped back to contraction mode with a reading of 49.5 from 50.2 in September while growth in the non-manufacturing PMI inched lower to 50.6, below consensus of 51.8 and September print of 51.7.

Let’s look at the AUD/USD from the lens of technical analysis.

An impending medium-term bullish reversal configuration has emerged

Fig 1:  AUD/USD medium-term trend as of 31 Oct 2023 (Source: TradingView, click to enlarge chart)

Since its 5 September 2023 low of 0.6357, the AUD/USD has started to oscillate within an ongoing eight-week impending “Descending Wedge” configuration with its downside momentum abating as indicated by the bullish divergence condition being flashed out in the daily RSI momentum indicator after it hit its oversold region on 17 August 2023.

These observations (price actions pattern coupled with readings seen in momentum indicator) tend to suggest that the medium-term downtrend from the 1 February 2023 high is likely to be approaching its tail-end where a potential imminent bullish reversal may occur next.

The upper limit (resistance) of the impending “Descending Wedge” bullish reversal configuration stands at 0.6395.

Short-term momentum is still bearish

Fig 2:  AUD/USD minor short-term trend as of 30 Oct 2023 (Source: TradingView, click to enlarge chart)

In the shorter-term 1-hour chart, the price actions of AUD/USD may shape a potential residual push down to retest the lower boundary of the “Descending Wedge” bullish reversal configuration as indicated by the momentum bearish breakdown condition seen in the 1-hour RSI indicator after it reached its overbought region yesterday, 30 October.

Watch the 0.6395 key short-term pivotal resistance (upper boundary of the “Descending Wedge” & 50-day moving average) for a potential slide toward the immediate supports of 0.6330 and 0.6270/6260 (lower boundary of the “Descending Wedge” & Fibonacci extension) before a potential recovery takes form.

However, a clearance above 0.6395 invalidates the bearish residual push down scenario for a bullish breakout to see the next intermediate resistance coming in at 0.6510 (30 Aug/20 September 2023 minor swing high) in the first step.

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Escobar: Iran-Russia Set A Western Trap In Palestine

Escobar: Iran-Russia Set A Western Trap In Palestine

Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Cradle,

The only country that could possibly distract…

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October 31, 2023

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Escobar: Iran-Russia Set A Western Trap In Palestine

Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Cradle,

The only country that could possibly distract the west from Ukraine is Israel. But the US and its allies are walking into an existential trap if they think a West Asian victory will be more easily won than a European one...

The Russia-Iran strategic partnership - with China in the wings - is laying an elaborate, Sun Tzu-tinged trap for the Hegemon in West Asia. 

Apart from Israel, there is no entity on the planet capable of switching the focus, in a flash, away from the west's spectacular debacle in Ukraine. 

The warmongers in charge of US foreign policy, not exactly Bismarckian stalwarts, believe that if Project Ukraine is unattainable, Project Final Solution in Palestine could instead be a - ethnic cleansing - cakewalk. 

A more plausible scenario, though is that Iran-Russia – and the new “axis of evil” Russia-China-Iran – have all it takes to drag the Hegemon into a second quagmire. It’s all about using the enemy’s own, discombobulated flip-flapping to unbalance him and disorient him to oblivion.

The White House’s wishful thinking that the Forever Wars in Ukraine and Israel are inscribed in the same lofty “democracy” drive and essential to US national interests, has already backfired – even among American public opinion. 

That does not prevent cries and whispers along the Beltway revealing Israel-allied US neocons increasing the tempo to provoke Iran – via a proverbial false flag that would lead to an American attack. That Armageddon scenario neatly fits Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s biblical psychopathy. 

Vassals would be forced to meekly comply. NATO heads of state have made a beeline to visit Israel to demonstrate their unconditional support for Tel Aviv - including Greece’s Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, Britain’s Rishi Sunak, Germany’s Olaf Scholz, the senile lodger at the White House, and France’s Emmanuel Macron. 

Avenging the Arab “century of humiliation” 

So far, Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah has shown extraordinary restraint by not taking any bait. Hezbollah supports the Palestinian resistance as a whole – and until a few years back, had serious issues with Hamas, with which it clashed in Syria. Hamas, incidentally, while partially funded by Iran, is not run by Iran. As much as Tehran supports the Palestinian cause, Palestinian resistance groups make their own decisions. 

The big news is that all these issues are now dissolving. Both Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) went to Lebanon to visit Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah in person this week. That spells out unity of purpose – or what the region's Axis of Resistance calls the “Unity of Fronts.”   

Even more eye-opening was Hamas' visit to Moscow this week, which was met with impotent Israeli fury. The Hamas delegation was headed by a member of its Politburo, Abu Marzouk. Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri came especially from Tehran and met two of Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov’s key deputies, Sergei Ryabkov and Mikhail Galuzin.  

That spells out Hamas, Iran, and Russia negotiating at the same table. 

Hamas has called on the millions of Palestinians in the diaspora, as well as the whole Arab world and all lands of Islam, to unite. Slowly but surely, a pattern may be discerned: could the Arab world – and great swathes of Islam - be on the verge of significantly uniting to avenge their own “century of humiliation” – much as the Chinese did after WWII with Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping? 

Beijing, via its sophisticated diplomacy, is certainly hinting at it to key players, even before the ground-breaking, Russia-China brokered Iran-Saudi rapprochement was struck earlier this year. 

That by itself won’t thwart the perpetual US neocon obsession to bomb critical infrastructure in Iran. Worth less than zero when it comes to military science, these neocons ignore how Iranian retaliation would - accurately – target each and every US base in Iraq and Syria, with the Persian Gulf an open case. 

Peerless Russian military analyst Andrei Martyanov has shown what could happen to those expensive American iron bathtubs in the Eastern Mediterranean in case of an Israeli-threatened attack on Iran.   

Moreover, there are at least 1,000 US troops in northern Syria stealing the country's oil – which would also become an instant target. 

Ali Fadavi, IRGC’s deputy commander-in-chief, cut to the chase: “We have technologies in the military field that no one knows about, and the Americans will know about them when we use them.”

Cue to Iranian hypersonic Fattah missiles – cousins to the Khinzal and the DF-27 - traveling at Mach 15, and able to reach any target in Israel in 400 seconds.  

And add to it sophisticated Russian electronic warfare (EW). As confirmed in Moscow six months ago, when it comes to military interconnection, the Iranians told the Russians at the same table, “whatever you need, just ask.” The same applies vice-versa, because the mutual enemy is one and the same.

It’s all about the Strait of Hormuz 

The heart of the matter in any Russian-Iran strategy is the Strait of Hormuz, through which transits at least 20 percent of the world’s oil (nearly 17 million barrels a day) plus 18 percent of liquified natural gas (LNG), which amounts to at least 3.5 billion cubic feet a day.  

Iran is able to block the Strait of Hormuz in a flash. For starters, that would be some sort of poetic justice retribution for Israel aiming to gobble up, illegally, all the multibillion-dollar natural gas discovered offshore Gaza: this is, incidentally, one of the absolutely key reasons for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. 

Yet the real deal will be to bring down the Wall Street-engineered $618 trillion derivative structure, as confirmed for years by analysts at Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan, as well as independent Persian Gulf energy traders. 

So when push comes to shove - and way beyond the defense of Palestine and in a scenario of Total War - not only Russia-Iran but key players of the Arab world about to become members of BRICS 11 - such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE - do have what it takes to bring down the US financial system anytime they choose.  

As an old school Deep State higher up, now in business in Central Europe, stresses:

“The Islamic nations have the economic advantage. They can blow up the international financial system by cutting off the oil. They do not have to fire a single shot. Iran and Saudi Arabia are allying together. The 2008 crisis took 29 trillion dollars to solve but this one, should it happen, could not be solved even with 100 trillion dollars of fiat instruments.”

As Persian Gulf traders told me, one possible scenario is OPEC starting to sanction Europe, first from Kuwait and then spreading from one OPEC country to another and to all countries that are treating the Muslim world as enemies and war fodder. 

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani has already warned that oil to western markets could be put off because of what Israel is perpetrating in Gaza. Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian has already called, on the record, for a total oil and gas embargo by Islamic countries against nations – essentially NATO vassals - that support Israel.

So Christian Zionists in the US allied with neocon asset Netanyahu threatening to attack Iran have the potential to pull down the entire world financial system.

Forever War on Syria, remixed  

Under the current volcano, the Russia-China strategic partnership has been extremely cautious. To the outside world, their mutual official position is to refuse to side with either Palestine or Israel; call for a ceasefire on humanitarian grounds; call for a two-state solution; and respect international law. All their initiatives at the UN have been duly sabotaged by the Hegemon. 

As it stands, Washington has refused the green light for the Israeli ground invasion of Gaza. The main reason is the immediate US priority: buy some time to expand the war to Syria, “accused” of being the key transit point for Iranian weapons to Hezbollah. That also doubles as re-opening the same old war front against Russia. 

There are no illusions in Moscow. The intel apparatus knows well that Israeli Mossad agents have been advising Kiev while Tel Aviv was supplying weapons to Ukraine under serious US pressure.  That infuriated the siloviki, and may have constituted a fatal Israeli mistake.

The neocons, for their part, never stop. They are advancing a parallel threat: if Hezbollah attacks Israel with something else than a few sparse rockets – and that simply won’t happen - the Hmeimim Russian Air Base in Latakia will be “eliminated” as a “warning” to Iran.

This does not even qualify as children playing in the sandbox. After the serial Israeli attacks on the civilian Damascus and Aleppo airports, Moscow did not even blink before offering its Hmeimim facilities to Syria – complete with clearance for Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) cargo flights, according to some Russian intel sources. Netanyahu will not exactly harbor a death wish by bombing a fully A2/AD (anti-access/area denial) Russian Air Base.  

Moscow also clearly sees what those expensive American iron bathtubs in the Eastern Mediterranean might be up to. The response has been swift: Mig-31Ks are patrolling neutral air space over the Black Sea 24/7, equipped with hypersonic Khinzals, which would take only six minutes to visit the Mediterranean.   

Amidst all this neocon-drenched madness, with the Pentagon deploying a formidable array of weaponry plus “undisclosed” assets to the Eastern Mediterranean, whether the target is Hezbollah, Syria, Iran, Russia, or all of the above, both China and North Korea – part of the new American-concocted “axis of evil” - have indicated they will not be mere bystanders. 

The Chinese Navy is for all practical purposes shielding Iran from a distance. Yet even more forceful has been a statement by Premier Li Qiang - something unusually blunt and rare in Chinese diplomacy: 

"China will continue to firmly support Iran in safeguarding its national sovereignty, territorial integrity, and national dignity, and will strongly oppose any external forces interfering in Iran's internal affairs.”

Never forget that China and Iran are linked by a comprehensive strategic partnership. Meanwhile, Russian Premier Mikhail Mishustin has reinforced the Russia-Iran strategic partnership in a meeting with Iran's First Vice-President Mohammad Mokhber.

Remember those rice eaters from Korea 

Pro-Iran militias across the Axis of Resistance, are keeping a carefully tempered degree of confrontation against Israel, close to guerrilla hit-and-run. They won’t be engaged in massive attacks yet. But all bets are off if Israel invades Gaza. It’s clear the Arab world, for all its massive internal contradictions, will simply not tolerate the civilian massacre. 

Bluntly, at the current incendiary juncture, the Hegemon has found the offramp from its Project Ukraine humiliation. They erroneously believe that the same old Forever War rekindled in West Asia can be “modulated” at will. And if two wars turn into an immense political albatross, as they will, what else is new? They will simply start a new war in the “Indo-Pacific.” 

None of that fools Russia-Iran and their ice-cold monitoring of the flipping and flapping Hegemon every step of the way. It’s enlightening to remember what Malcolm X was already predicting in 1964:

“Some rice eaters ran him out of Korea. Yes, they ran him out of Korea. Rice eaters with nothing but gym shoes, and a rifle, and a bowl of rice took him and his tanks and his napalm, and all that other action he’s supposed to have and ran him across the Yalu. Why? Cause the day that he can win on the ground has passed.” 

Tyler Durden Tue, 10/31/2023 - 02:00

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Antibiotics for common childhood infections no longer effective

Drugs to treat common infections in children and babies are no longer effective in large parts of the world, due to high rates of antibiotic resistance….

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October 31, 2023

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Drugs to treat common infections in children and babies are no longer effective in large parts of the world, due to high rates of antibiotic resistance.

Credit: Hamish Gregory

Drugs to treat common infections in children and babies are no longer effective in large parts of the world, due to high rates of antibiotic resistance.

The University of Sydney led study found many antibiotics recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) had less than 50 percent effectiveness in treating childhood infections such as pneumonia, sepsis (bloodstream infections) and meningitis. The findings show global guidelines on antibiotic use are outdated and need updates.

The most seriously affected regions are in South-East Asia and the Pacific, including neighbouring Indonesia and the Philippines, where thousands of unnecessary deaths in children resulting from antibiotic resistance occur each year.

The WHO has declared antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is one of the top 10 global public health threats facing humanity. In newborns, an estimated three million cases of sepsis occur globally each year, with up to 570,000 deaths: many of these are due to lack of effective antibiotics to treat resistant bacteria.

The findings, published in Lancet South East Asia, adds to mounting evidence that common bacteria responsible for sepsis and meningitis in children are often resistant to prescribed antibiotics.

The research reveals the urgent need for global antibiotic guidelines to be updated, to reflect the rapidly evolving rates of AMR. The most recent guideline from The World Health Organization was published in 2013.

The study found one antibiotic in particular, ceftriaxone, was likely to be effective in treating only one in three cases of sepsis or meningitis in newborn babies. Ceftriaxone is also widely used in Australia to treat many infections in children, such as pneumonia and urinary tract infections. 

Another antibiotic, gentamicin, was found likely to be effective in treating fewer than half of all sepsis and meningitis cases in children.

Gentamicin is commonly prescribed alongside aminopenicillins, which the study showed also has low effectiveness in combating bloodstream infections in babies and children.

Lead author Dr Phoebe Williams from the University’s School of Public Health  and Sydney Infectious Diseases Institute is an infectious disease specialist whose research focuses on reducing AMR in high-burden healthcare settings in Southeast Asia.

She also works as a clinician in Australia. Dr Williams says there are increasing cases of multidrug-resistant bacterial infections in children around the world.

AMR is more problematic for children than adults, as new antibiotics are less likely to be trialled on, and made available to, children.

Dr Williams says the study should be a wake-up call for the whole world, including Australia.

“We are not immune to this problem – the burden of anti-microbial resistance is on our doorstep,” she said.

“Antibiotic resistance is rising more rapidly than we realise. We urgently need new solutions to stop invasive multidrug-resistant infections and the needless deaths of thousands of children each year.”

The study analysed 6,648 bacterial isolates from 11 countries across 86 publications to review antibiotic susceptibility for common bacteria causing childhood infections.

Dr Wiliams said the best way to tackle antibiotic resistance in childhood infections is to make funding to investigate new antibiotic treatments for children and newborns a priority.

“Antibiotic clinical focus on adults and too often children and newborns are left out. That means we have very limited options and data for new treatments.”

Dr Williams is currently looking into an old antibiotic, fosfomycin, as a temporary lifeline to treat multidrug-resistant urinary tract infections in children in Australia.

She is also working with the WHO’s Paediatric Drug Optimisation Committee to ensure children have access to antibiotics to treat multidrug-resistant infections as soon as possible, to reduce deaths due to AMR among children.

“This study reveals important problems regarding the availability of effective antibiotics to treat serious infections in children,” says senior author Paul Turner, director of the Cambodia Oxford Medical Research Unit at Angkor Hospital for Children, Siem Reap and professor of paediatric microbiology at the University of Oxford, UK.

“It also highlights the ongoing need for high quality laboratory data to monitor the AMR situation, which will facilitate timely changes to be made to treatment guidelines.”

-ENDS-

Journal

The Lancet Regional Health – Southeast Asia

DOI

10.1016/j.lansea.2023.100291

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Coverage gaps in empiric antibiotic regimens used to treat serious bacterial infections in neonates and children in Southeast Asia and the Pacific

Article Publication Date

31-Oct-2023

COI Statement

Declaration: Paul Turner is Co-PI for the ACORN2 AMR surveillance network project and was supported to attend the AMR diagnostic initative meeting in Geneva in July 2023. PCMW is the recipient of an NHMRC grant focusing on antimicrobial resistance in children in Australia and the Southeast Asia/Pacific region, and was supported by ECCMID to attend the ASM/ECCMID conference on drug development to meet the challenge of antimicrobial resistance in October 2022.

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