Antibiotic Resistance: Proposals to Deal with the New Wrinkles on an Old Problem

Abstract

Resistance to antibiotics is hardly a new problem; ever since the advent of penicillin and other antibiotics more than 50 years ago defiant strains of bacteria have emerged. The harrowing aspect is that now almost every human pathogen treated with antibiotics is showing resistance, and many doctors fear that this will only be the tip of the iceberg. After all, every time any antibiotic is used, while it may kill the majority of the bacteria the drug was intended to destroy, there is a likelihood that a few germs will remain, surviving because of their resistant traits or their ability to mutate and become resistant to antibiotics. Once created, these resistant genes can multiply quickly, creating new strains of bacteria that could result in the patient's next infection failing to respond to the previously administered antibiotic. In fact, bacteria can reproduce about every twenty minutes, meaning resistance is quickly spread, and the resistant strand eventually becomes the dominant strand of that species.