Superbug Research Paper

Scientists have proved a direct relationship between antibiotic dosage and the emergence and spread of drug-resistant bacteria. Firstly, the overuse of antibiotics clearly drives the evolution of resistance. In many countries where antibiotics are unregulated and can be bought without a prescription. The lack of regulation leads to antibiotics being easily available, plentiful and cheap, which results in overuse. With the emergence of online shopping, people in countries where antibiotics are regulated also can get antibiotics from foreign countries. Secondly, incorrectly prescribed antibiotics also contribute to the promotion of resistant bacteria. Up to half of antibiotics used in humans are unnecessary and inappropriate. For example, a third of people believe that antibiotics are effective for the common cold, and the common cold is the most common reason

Antibiotics are powerful very frequently used potential drugs in fighting bacterial infections worldwide, [1]. These agents saved millions of lives in the past fifty years in both hospital-based and outpatient settings. Inadequate measures to control the spreading of infections, overprescribing as well as inappropriate selection and dosing of antibiotics by healthcare providers, unfettered access to antimicrobials by public, failure to adhere to clinically desired treatment regimens are some of the driving force to spread of antibiotics resistance, [2]. In addition, lack of regulations to promote the rational use of antibiotics in humans, infection prevention and control are some of the other factors that lead to emergence of resistance to antibiotics, [3].

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.

A Superbug is a bacterium that can live in the human body and has the ability to withstand all forms of antibiotic medication. Superbugs are becoming increasingly significant in modern medicine as they are becoming more and more resistant to antibiotics. Antibiotics were discovered in 1928 by Alexander Fleming (Walsh and McManus, 2000). This resulted in a huge movement forward in medical history and even greatened human life expectancy. Since then antibiotics have been widely used and abused, people began to treat everything with this ‘miracle’ drug. If antibiotics are continually used as bacteria grows exponentially more resistant to them then eventually society will fall back into an era without the readily

In today’s society it has become apparent that “antibiotic-resistant superbugs are the world’s greatest threat to humans now, and into the future. (UQ contact, 2015). In recent years’ bacteria and superbugs have adapted to resist multiple antibiotics including the last line drugs, causing large concern among the medical industry. Staphylococcus aureus, otherwise known as golden staph is a fine example of an antibiotic resistant superbug. Golden staph is becoming more excessively resistant to the most powerful of antibiotics, due to the excessive use of antibiotics the bacteria has mutated drug resistant strains, causing havoc among Australian hospitals.

The article “The End of Antibiotics” discusses a 57 year old man that was dying and how doctors could only sit by while his condition deteriorated. This man was not shot or stabbed, he was infected with antibiotic resistant bacteria that was slowly killing him. He died months later after being bombarded with antibiotics in the form of capsules, tablets, and IVs (Begley par.1). This is the unsettling power that superbugs like this one has over modern day medicine. A superbug is a bacteria that has evolved its cellular structure to resist antibiotics. Dr. Richard Wenzel of the University of Iowa stated, “Only a few years after penicillin came into wide use with World War II, strains of staph had emerged

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

Antibiotics-resistant organisms have become one of the most serious threats to public health, infecting over two million people and killing approximately 23,000 people annually.1 According to the CDC, “total inappropriate antibiotic use,” such as prescribing unnecessary antibiotics or giving the wrong dose or duration, makes up to 50% of all outpatient antibiotic use,2,3 and in 2009, the United States spent $10.7 billion on antibiotics, indicating that there is a lot of potential money to save.4

The world health organisation has announced antibiotic resistance and the rise of superbugs as a great threat to human race. Superbugs are defined as bacteria equipped bacteria with "bullet proof vests” of antibiotic resistance that deflect "magic silver bullets" of antibiotics. Under right circumstances, they can transfer the antibiotic resistance genes to other bacteria and completely paralyse humans to combat against bacteria (news.com.au 2014). In Australia, thousands of people per year are diagnosed with superbugs and these victims often face a prolonged illness and ultimately death (Pogson 2012). The severity of the problem can become apparent by referring to the death attributable to antibiotic resistance every year from 2014 to 2050,

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.

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

As a child, many people can recall fights with their parents when having to take medicine or antibiotics. The struggling and crying became a routine soon enough, before the child’s health renewed, and all became well again until the next illness. Children usually hate antibiotics for a very good reason, though. The thick texture of the liquid form, the large pills that left a bad taste in one’s mouth if they took too long to swallow, the suffocating and slimy feeling of ointments and creams against the skin. Everyone’s experienced this before. However, taking antibiotics is not only unpleasant, but it’s also a risky business within a person’s body. Too little or too much of an antibiotic can have negative results. One of these results is the emergence of a bacteria line that almost seems like something out of a horror movie. Mutated strains called superbugs have already begun to leave their mark on the world. A nightmare indeed. Superbugs have become a massive problem that needs to be stopped with a stronger line of antibiotics, ones that researchers have only just now figured out how to create.

What are superbugs and how do they affect everyday life or the future. Can we stop them or will they be the reason for human extinction? Are We causing them or are they forming naturally? What are we doing to stop them? I believe that we are creating superbugs and they will not end the human race.

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).

Recently, numerous varieties of bacteria causing especially difficult-to-remedy infections have risen to prominence in not only the general community, but also, and more noteworthily, in various healthcare facilities. These bacteria, also known as “superbugs”, are all characterized by not only their potential to cause severe, demonstrably lethal disease, with tens of thousands of the more than two million people in the United States developing infections characterized by drug/antibiotic resistance dying from them annually (Maron, 2013), but also their methods of evolution, namely all manifestations of a process known as horizontal transfer. Their strength mainly results from natural selection, coupled with antibiotic resistance, which in turn is obtained from misuse of the antimicrobial medicine. Additionally, the government is currently not regulating the usage or prescription of antibiotics, and is not expressing nearly the same concern towards this public health matter than towards such diseases as cancer or AIDS, which may eventually be curable through improved medical technology, cannot evolve to become more untreatable as with the superbugs, and do not necessarily come about as a direct result of medicinal abuse. Indeed, the situation is urgent, with the CDC-described “nightmare” bacteria rapidly pervading the entirety of the world ever since half of a century prior. The government