Year: 2005
Type: article
Abstract: Preserving a Precious Resourcecreased the median life span by eight years, from sixty-two to seventy, during their first twenty years ofuse (1935 to 1955).14 Yet almost from the beginning of their widespread use, doctors noticed that bacteria developed countermeasures to antibiotics.Researchers reported significant levels of penicillin resistance in "staph."infections (short for Staphylococcus aureus, a common species of bacteria that normally does not cause serious infections, but can if it enters the bloodstream or vital organs) as early as 1945.15 Over ninety-five percent of staph.bacteria today are resistant to penicillin and related compounds.16Multiple resistant Staphylococcus aureus ("MRSA") strains have successively evolved resistance to almost every class of antibiotics, including: synthetic variants of penicillin such as methicillin, cephalosporins, pen ems, and carbapenems.There was great hope in the 1980s that tluoroquinolones, such as cipro, would remain effective because they use a novel mechanism of manufactured origin to attack bacteria.This unnatural, or "synthetic" characteristic, however, made little difference."A study by the Centers for Disease Control showed that ciprotloxacin resistance of MRSA went from less than 5% to greater than 80% within one year .... " 17Today, some strains of MRSA are resistant to all mainstream antibiotics except vancomycin, which has become a critical antibiotic of "last resort."18Even more ominously, there have been sporadic appearances of staph.infections exhibiting moderate resistance to vancomycin (labeled VISA-vancomycin intermediate Staphylococcus aureus).19 Summing up staph.'s repeated ability to defeat almost all antibiotics deployed against it, one scientist said that these episodes "illustrate the rapid ability of bacteria to become resistant to virtually all antibacterial agents whether of natural origin . . .partially synthetic . . .or totally synthetic, such as tluoroquinolones."2014
Author: Eric Kades
Language: English
Subfield: Infectious Diseases
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1509901705