Are Antibiotics Resistant Bacteria?

Throughout my life, adults have insisted the use of antibiotics to fight against the most inconsequential illnesses, whether it’s the cold or the flu. However, neither illness is due to invasion of bacteria. This misuse can lead to antibiotic resistance, also known as antimicrobial resistance(AMR), currently one of the central issues facing the public health system. While the process for antibiotic resistance occurs naturally through the process of adaptation, the mismanagement of antibiotic resources has accelerated the rate at which the bacteria adapt. The occurrence of this misinformation isn’t limited to a few adults: even some of my peers suggest taking antibiotics when faced with the flu. This leads to asking whether AMR is truly a problem and are present regulations enough to combat the issue.

(Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 17 April 2015, para. 7). If your doctor has ever given, or will give you antibiotics, the misuse, the wrong dosage, and even the wrongful prescription of antibiotics, such as for a virus, can eventually contribute to making a superbug, again according to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1 February 2017, para. 2-5). There are already many instances of superbugs taking people’s lives. For example, just this January 2017, the CDC reported that a Washoe County resident in Reno, Nevada died in late September 2016 because she had an infection from a superbug that could not be cured by every available antibiotic in the United States (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1 August 2017, para. 1-5). Posted on the Infectious Diseases Society of America website in 2007 by her mother was the story of how Rebecca Lohsen, a 17-year-old high school student and swimmer from New Jersey, died from an MRSA infection, an infection resulting from a superbug (Infectious Diseases Society of America, September 2007, para. 1). On that same website, posted by her parents, a 19-year-old college student, Meredith LittleJohn, died to a superbug after spending time in an intensive care unit in a hospital (Infectious Diseases Society of America, n.d., para. 1-3). And the list of those affected goes way on. So as we can see, superbugs are definitely a threatening and real issue that can affect almost anyone.

The term “superbug” has been a headline in today’s conversations. America is known to be the number one country that’s is overly medicated, and one day our bodies would become resistant to the very same medications that would someday be needed to save your life. Scary as it sounds it is true. Superbugs or CRE (Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae) is very serious among hospitals, colleges, foods, nursing homes, or one in twenty-five acute care facilities across the globe known to have contracted CRE in the past year. In a headline on CNBC the CDC mentions that over “forty-seven million unnecessary prescribed antibiotic prescriptions are given every year in the United States.” Meanwhile, as a faster way of promoting healthier livestock farmers

Antibiotic should kill bacteria.Antibiotic-resistant infect two million people each year.”Some bacteria have developed resistance to antibiotics that were once commonly used to treat them.”

This video provided a stark look at a serious problem that faces us on the disease front, and it also lent a glimpse into a real possibility that looms over mankind: being thrust back to the time when we were powerless to stop bacterial infections. Scientific research may be our best hope to find new antibiotics capable of warding off pathogenic bacteria for a number of decades, until once again, they become resistant. Or perhaps, as in the case presented in the video of Fleming’s initial discovery of antibiotics (Rx for Survival, 2005), chance will favor us and someone will stumble upon a new

As a writer for The Globe and Mail, Jennifer Yang, stated, “Anti-bacterial products containing anti-microbial agents are being increasingly marketed to Canadians for personal and household use despite a lack of evidence for additional benefit and serious concerns about the potential for increased bacterial resistance.” The concern she is talking about is centred in the use of the products such as disinfectant sprays, of which can kill 99.9% of bacteria on a given surface. The 0.1% that is left remaining is the mutated antibiotic-resistant super bug which the disinfectant is unable to kill due to its mutated nature. And being the only type left, it has no competitors remaining for resources and can divide at a rapid pace, giving birth to a larger colony of highly dangerous pathogens. The same phenomena occurs when patients stop taking antibiotics half way through their treatment. The amount of bacteria in their body at that point has a higher percentage of stronger bacteria than the weaker. Therefore, when the patient decides to stop their antibiotic treatment, they inadvertently create more resistant bacteria than there originally was in their body, as the mutated bacteria now has more room to grow. If those bacteria are then passed on to another person, the rate of resistant bacteria dramatically increases, raising the amount of near invincible pathogens in the world by another percentage.

    These are many killers that damage generations, but there is one tiny thing that has caused countless deaths and injuries throughout history -- Superbugs. It caused 700,000 deaths every year, and it was estimated to kill 10 million lives each year by 2050, which would cost over 100 trillion dollars per year and a worldwide economic output reduction of 2% to 3.5%, etc.(Walsh,para2) Surprisingly, superbugs are caused by nothing else but overusing “life-saver”: antibiotics. Thus, we must significantly limit the use of antibiotics in medicine and agriculture in order to stop the creation of deadly, drug-resistant “Superbugs.”

According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), “Antibiotic resistance is the ability of microbes to resist the effects of drugs – that is, the germs are not killed, and their growth is not stopped. Although some people are at greater risk than others, no one can completely avoid the risk of antibiotic-resistant infections” (“About Antimicrobial Resistance”). Antibiotic resistance has a higher chance of occurring with the more antibiotics taken, as the body adapts more and more each time. The CDC has collected data across the country, and has concluded that the estimated number of deaths caused by antibiotic resistance is 23,000, and that the number of illnesses is slightly higher than 2 million (“About Antimicrobial Resistance”). Already antibiotic resistance has affected millions of lives, and will continue to affect many more until antibiotic overuse is stopped

The continual chess game that we play against nature, she seems to outmaneuver us with every move that we make, regardless of our increasing amount of resources and knowledge. Dr. Lori Tishler of Harvard Medical School says on the school’s published web articles that drug-resistant bacteria sicken more than 2 million people in America each year and account for 23,00 deaths. People are still getting sick and dying all over the world, and when one microbial threat is neutralized, another drug-resistant strain is recognized. Here are some examples out of Dr. Kimberly Thompson’s book, Overkill: in

The root of this problem lies in what Charles Darwin called the “survival of the fittest” in which organisms eventually adapt and evolve in response to their environment and its impending threats in order to survive. Bacteria is now doing this in response to antibiotics, which are purposed to kill bacteria so as to eliminate infections and diseases. However, now more and more bacteria are evolving to form antibiotic-resistant strains that there are no or very expensive antibiotics or treatments for yet, even if they were once easily treated diseases. Often this is a result of overuse or improper use of antibiotics by both medical professionals and patients. Overuse, such as attempting to use antibiotics for infections that do not warrant them, such as the common cold, allows existing bacteria to devise mechanisms such as “neutralizing” antibiotics, removing antibiotics, adapting their structure so as to become impenetrable to the antibiotics, or improving upon their genetics. Improper use of bacteria, such as beginning an antibiotic, but failing to use it to completion, also allows bacteria to do the

One of the greatest problems our world faces today is rising antibiotic resistance in viruses, bacteria and pathogens in general. This is a human-driven problem; the more we use antibiotics to save lives today, the stronger the pathogens infecting and harming us tomorrow will be. The entire problem is based in natural selection because antibiotics kill all of a pathogen except for a special few who were themselves deformed in a way that enabled them to survive. These then become the pathogens that infect everyone, so the previous solution is no longer able to solve the problem the next time around. There can be no single concrete solution, but rather endless research and discovery to stop these pathogens from causing death and destruction

The increasing resistance of bacteria to antibiotics is a growing problem that affects individuals on a global status. Antibiotic resistance refers to the ability of bacteria to alter their genetic material and mutate to avoid destruction by antibiotic medications rendering the drugs ineffective in fighting infection and disease. This resistance has had tragic effects as numerous of the resistant infections have resulted in death of the host. Because of the severity of this condition, organizations and institutions across the globe have been working together to study and examine the best strategies to combat these resistant bacteria or sometimes referred to as “superbugs”. Many innovations have been proposed and implemented in attempts to rid people of their infections. The discussion of which approaches are the most effective and cost efficient has been taking place for decades and is still occurring today along with further investigations of alternatives to antibiotics altogether. Researchers are also attempting to understand what has caused the problem of antibiotic resistance and how this problem has developed. Efforts to contest these bacteria are extremely important and it is now up to the next generation of health care providers, researchers, and educators to implement the best ways to keep people healthy.

For example, you may have heard of the woman in Reno this January who died to a “nightmare superbug” because the infection could not be cured by every available antibiotic in the United States (Nevada Public Radio, 17 January 2017, para. 3). On the Infectious Diseases Society of America website was the story of how a 19-year-old college student, Meredith Littlejohn, died to a superbug after spending time in an intensive care unit. (Infectious Diseases Society of America, n.d., para. 1-3). These are only two of thousands who die every year. And so clearly our misuse and overuse of antibiotics have created very serious, negative outcomes.

In their research article, White House Crafts First-Ever Plan to Fight Superbugs, Abutaleb and Baertlein indicate a large-scale plan of action to reduce the spread of deadly Superbugs. Dark Clouds for Drug Development, author John Blau reports that in recent years, pharmaceutical companies have pulled back on research for Superbug-fighting drugs as funding for new drug development has taken cuts. These articles go hand-in-hand with one another as they demonstrate that the effects of the new plan spurred from the White House to stimulate research in antibiotic resistant “Superbugs.” The quote, “The goals include drastically reducing the rates of the most deadly “superbug” infections within 5 years, investing in new diagnostic tools and antibiotic drugs, improving antibiotic use…” demonstrates the new plan’s motives. The latter source indicates, “Analysts identify several reasons, beyond the reduction in federal funding, for the decline. The cost of introducing a new drug and successfully taking it to market has increased

The overuse of antibiotics has been a problem for well over a decade. This misuse leads to many nonvisible problems arising within the human population. As the use of antibiotics increases, the number of antibiotic resistant bacteria also increases. When bacteria become resistant to an antibiotic, another antibiotic must be used to try and kill it and the cycle becomes vicious. Michael Martin, Sapna Thottathil, and Thomas Newman stated that antimicrobial resistance is, “an increasingly serious threat to global public health that requires action across all government sectors and society” (2409).