Old Dog Research Paper

Antibiotics, composed of microorganisms such as streptomycin and penicillin, kill other infectious microorganisms in the human body. At one point, antibiotics were considered to have “basically wiped out infection in the United States”, but due to their overuse and evolutionary

In 1928 Dr. Alexander Fleming began to sort through a pile of petri dishes containing colonies of bacteria that causes boils, sore throats, and abscesses. As he sorted through the dishes he noticed something unusual on one dish. It was dotted with colonies, and one area had a blob of mold growing. The area of mold was later identified as a rare strain of Penicillium notatum, the mold had secreted something that inhibited bacterial growth. Fleming later uncovered that this mold was capable of killing a wide range of harmful bacteria such as streptococcus, meningococcus and the diphtheria bacillus, that had played humanities. Prior to the discovery of Penicillin, Sulfa drugs were used during World War II. These drugs were name as the “wonder drug”. Although they’re still used today, Sulfa drugs were used to cure bacterial infections such as UTIs and gonorrhea. The new found drug penicillin, would cure millions and replace the use of Sulfa drugs.

Antibiotic resistant infections are not only increasing, but intensifying exponentially. Even worse, there are few drugs readily available to diminish the swelling number of contagions; a sparse and meager quantity of combatants to tackle the vehement and aggressive pathogenic bacterium. These microscopic organisms, though infinitesimal, cause gigantic problems and wreak extra havoc when they attack the drugs prescribed to destroy and eradicate them, and survive. In culmination, they are more resilient, more powerful than ever before. Many of these superbugs are stronger and more alive, violently destroying the immune system of the body that has become their habitat, instead of ultimately dying. The tiny,

At least two million people are infected with antibiotic resistant superbugs and at least 23,000 die from them.

It contains 5 ppm of silver that aids in the destruction of bacteria, fungi and viruses (Khalsa and Singh, 2008). This treatment could potentially work from its use beforehand, however, predictably will not work as effectively as the antibiotics.

A current predicament in the field of science is antibiotic resistance against superbugs.Though fighting against superbugs; which can be defined as a strain of bacteria unable to be killed using multiple antibiotics, is now a large problem, in the past it was not. The evolution of resistance in bacteria due to antibiotic abuse and lack of product development has brought upon us once again the fear of a pre-antibiotic era; one where simple, once easily defeated infections could kill. Already, infectious diseases are the 3rd leading cause of death in the US and the 2nd across the entire world, and drug resistant superbugs send 2 million Americans to hospitals every year; killing 23,000 of those people. And any bacterium can quickly and easily become multidrug resistant, the leading cause of this being antibiotic misuse in both humans and animals.( "Clinical Infectious Diseases." The Epidemic of Antibiotic-Resistant Infections: A Call to Action for the Medical Community from the Infectious Diseases Society of America. UCLA Medical School. Web. 27 Mar. 2016.)

In the last fifty years, the most prominent and transformative medical advancement made was the discovery of antibiotics and disinfectants. On the contrary, with the uncovering of antibiotics came the repercussion of the progressively threatening antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria or ‘superbugs’ formed due to the lack of care from the people to follow through with simple safety procedures in order to entirely get rid of bacterial illnesses and infections. Appropriate precautions are necessary and expectedly need to be taken, in order to minimize and possibly prohibit the formation, continual growth and limit the strength of resistance in the antibiotic-resistant superbugs, and most importantly to preserve medical advancements

Dr. Martin Blaser, author of Missing Microbes: How the Overuse of Antibiotics is Fueling Our Modern Plagues, paints antibiotics as a negative force in the world that causes disease. Dr. Blaser has studied the role of bacteria in human disease for more than thirty years at Vanderbilt University, and has experience as the director of the Human Microbiome Project at New York University. He also works with the National Institute of Health on infectious diseases. Meanwhile, Dr. David Shlaes, author of Antibiotics: The Perfect Storm, focuses on the drugs’ ability to cure disease. Dr. Shlaes has worked for 30 years in anti-infective academia, industry, and consulting. He served as Professor of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University for five years, and then moved to industry, where he became vice president of Infectious Diseases at Wyeth Research. Later, he took a position as executive vice president of research and development at Idenix Pharmaceuticals in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and formed his own consulting company. He now works predominantly with biotech companies and venture capital firms in their evaluation of anti-infective companies. While they take different approaches, the two doctors concur that antibiotic resistance is a major problem and that society needs to find ways to slow it down. One way to slow down the spread of resistant bacteria is finding ways to ensure

Before the development of penicillin in 1928, an insignificant wound could lead to one’s death induced by a bacterial infection. Since that time many medicinal advances have aided in the protection our society from these avoidable deaths. Unfortunately, after almost 90 years safeguarding the population, this miracle drug is losing the fight against mutated bacteria called superbugs. Due to the fact that antibiotics have been introduced to the bacteria, it has been able to evolve, making the infection immune to typical treatments. In order to defeat the mutated bacteria, scientists have had to create stronger medications that are toxic to the infectious bacteria, as well as the human body. This has left researchers desperate to find a new treatment that can adapt as quickly as the bacteria can mutate.

on inhibiting and treating pathogenic infections. Pathogenic infections are on the rise and cases are

In my research, I’ve noticed a change in our path to great health as the tables have turned for us. Antibiotics have always been a drug to turn to when we want to fight bacteria, but now the bacteria are growing stronger and fighting back to the point where they’re winning and we don’t have any solid guarantee of stopping them. In fact, we don’t even have a cure for these bacteria- or superbugs. So, when we send more antibiotics into the system with the intentions of diminishing the body of these bugs, it only makes matters worse as it can only increase the immunity of the bacteria towards the drug.

Have you ever had an infection before? Particularly, a bacterial infection. Millions of people are infected by means of bacteria per year in the United States alone (CDC 2017). At least two million of those residents are infected by bacteria that are resistant to the antibiotics that are currently on the market (CDC 2017). Bacterial infections are not the leading cause of mortality in the United States, but I believe that there is a need for a change in the way that the United States looks at antimicrobial research (CDC 2017). In this paper I will discuss the modes of antibacterial resistance, why pharmaceutical companies aren’t researching new antibiotics, and why this is an important global issue.

The rapid emergence of antimicrobial resistant bacteria is a startling problem facing the medical community and this problem is only expected to worsen in the coming years1,4. When Sir Alexander Fleming discovered the first antibiotic, penicillin, in 1928, many proclaimed his finding as the most important modern medical discovery2,4. Simple infections such as pneumonia could be treated rather easily despite the fact that such diagnoses could prove to be commonly fatal in the early 20th century4. Penicillin was also successfully used as a prophylactic treatment to curtail bacterial infections from overcoming the Allied forces during the second World War2,4. However, it was only less than a decade later that the first penicillin resistant bacteria were detected and the once all-powerful antibiotic faced a startling Darwinian reminder: “… the history of evolution is that life escapes all barriers… Life breaks free... Life expands to new territories... Painfully, perhaps even dangerously... But life finds a way”3. It is due to life’s incredible ability to evolve and adapt that we find ourselves in a state of nervousness and apprehension about the “post-antibiotic apocalypse” that is approaching ever so rapidly.

In the United States, there are many organisms which are much too small for a human to see with their naked eye, a microscope is needed to view them. These organisms are called microorganisms and can be very helpful in our environment, and even in our bodies. Some microorganisms however, can be extremely harmful, even fatal if a human comes in contact with them. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) one example of these harmful microorganisms is Pseudomonas Aeruginosa. P. aeruginosa causes over 51,000 infections in hospitals every year, and about 6,000 of those are infections caused by P. aeruginosa which is multidrug resistant (2013). A multidrug resistant P. aeruginosa is a serious threat and the CDC is working diligently to decrease infections and prevent them from occurring because this particular microorganism is resistant to almost all, or all antibiotics (CDC, 2013).

"If something has a benefit, and no harms, then you should likely use it. But if something has no benefits and potentially real harms, then you shouldn’t. The latter is the case with antibacterial products". (Carroll par. 1) The users of antibacterial products do not realize the harms of such, harms which overpower the benefits. When the first antibacterial product, Penicillin, was invented in 1928 it was called a miracle. (Online Textbook of Bacteriology pgs. 1-4) Deaths and illness were exponentially reduced, and penicillin saved countless lives during World War 2. By the 70s there were many types of antibiotics, thus we thought we had “won the war against bacteria”. We had cured major bacteria like Tuberculosis, Salmonella, and