The Misuse of Antibiotics and Bacterial Resistance

Resistant bacteria form from the overuse of antibiotics. What happens is, an antibacterial drug is

Antibiotic resistance evolves in bacteria. Charles Darwin created the theory of evolution which focused on natural selection being the key factor of how things change. Natural selection is when organisms that are better suited to the environment are able to reproduce successfully. Evolution is descent with modification. Bacteria can become resistant to antibiotics by a mutation. The bacteria that did not die from the antibiotic inherited the gene from an ancestor that made it resistant. Since the other bacteria is dying faster than the resistant bacteria, the resistant bacteria are able to multiply

Antibiotic resistance is when microorganisms, such as bacteria, are able to survive an exposure to antibiotics and these bacteria are now resistant to the effects of these antibiotics. Antibiotic resistance in bacteria has been an issue since antibiotics were discovered. The fact that bacteria can become resistant to our medical treatments such as antibiotics is a natural evolutionary process, but there are certain human contributions that definitely speed up the process. For example, one of the main contributions that will be discussed is the problem of over prescription of the antibiotic drugs. The

The misuse of antibiotics has the potential to set society back in time to the dark ages. It is time to end the careless use of these valuable antimicrobial that so many take for granted. Antibiotic resistance continues to expand and evolve and solutions to this epidemic need to implemented. By establishing stewardships, educational programs, and restrictions it teaches the severity of this issue and action that must be taken in order to decrease resistance. Antibiotic resistance is a multifactorial issue. Introducing preventative measures in hospitals will be most effective in reducing resistance, as well as eliminating the trend of misusing antibiotics.

There is much speculation about what has caused the increased resistance of bacteria to antibiotics and how this problem has developed.

Resistance via modification of the anti-microbial compounds: Bacterial pathogens have evolved strategies to chemically modify the antibiotics via the production of enzymes that adds specific moieties to the compounds, inhibiting their therapeutic effects (Jose at al., 2015). These enzymes exert their action through the process acetylation, phosphorylation and or adenylation to sterically hinder the compound so it is no longer able to bind its target. Due to these biochemical reactions, the drug is unable to bind its target sites and thus results in increased resistance and higher MICs among bacterial populations (Wilson, 2014;

Antibiotic resistance can develop wherever antibiotics are: medical facilities, animal products and communities. Breaks in infection control, inadequate water sanitation and poor hygiene all contribute to the spread of resistant bacteria from person to person (Collignon, et al., 2015). The majority of antibiotic usage worldwide is in animals raised as a food source (Collignon, et al., 2015). 80% of antibiotic use in the United States is for growth promotion and disease prevention of farm animals used for food sources (CDC, 2015). This usage of antibiotics leads to the development of resistant bacteria, which spread to people via the food chain or water (Collignon, et al., 2015).

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).

“Drug companies promote the use of their products through wide spread advertising and the practice of giving free samples of the more potent, broad- spectrum antibiotics to doctors” (Fuhrman,1). This only help the sales for drug companies and introducing newer, better medicine to the public. However, creating new medicines are causing prices to skyrocket, making it harder for the public to be able to afford the medication that is needed. With new antibiotics coming out people stand a greater chance becoming antibiotic-resistant with more access of these prescriptions. Now, that I have talked about the misuse of

The principle of antibiotic resistance revolve around how antibiotics work. Antibiotics target certain structures on bacteria such as their cell wall, proteins, and nucleic acids that results in the disruption and/or inhibition of their growth. These disturbances can sometimes lead to bacterial death. In order to survive, bacteria have developed countermeasures to fight against the harmful drugs. This was carried out by targeting the antibiotics themselves. The way antibiotics function is based on their chemical structure. Because many antibiotics have similar structures, they are also grouped in that way. Each class (or family) have similarities in their structure and in turn, have similarities in their target of action. Consequently, these similarities make it easy for the bacteria to construct resistance to different and multiple classes of antibiotics. Mechanisms that will be discussed all involve bacteria’s ability to prevent antibiotics from reaching its target by means of target alteration, drug detoxification, impermeability and efflux.

The resistance of bacteria to antibiotics has become so strong that some (although very few) bacteria have become completely resistant to all antibiotics that are considered safe and can only be treated with potentially harmful and toxic drugs. In a recent study undertaken, it was concluded that twenty five percent of all bacterial pneumonia cases were completely resistant to penicillin and that twenty five percent of all these cases were resistant to more than one antibiotic. If we do not start

Less than 50 years after penicillin was discovered, strains of bacteria were discovered to be resistant to antibiotics (Haddox, 2013). Over the years scientists have changed the structure of the antibiotics to avoid this resistance, every time the bacteria adapts to overcome the changes. Bacteria divides as fast as 20 minutes and have many different ways to adapt (Haddox, 2013). Bacteria pass their drug resistance between strains and species, causing antibiotics to be less effective to all bacteria (Haddox, 2013).

In the past tense 60 years, antibiotic drugs have been critical to the fight against infectious disease caused by bacteria and other microbe. Antimicrobial chemotherapy has been a lead cause for the dramatic rise of norm life expectancy in the Twentieth Century. 1 However, disease-causing bug that have become resistant to antibiotic drug therapy are an increasing public health trouble . Wound contagion , gonorrhea, tuberculosis, pneumonia, septicemia and childhood ear infection are just a few of the diseases that have become hard to treat with antibiotics. 2 One part of the job is that bacteria and other germ that cause infections are remarkably resilient and have developed several ways to resist antibiotics and other antimicrobial drug. 3 Another part of the problem is due to increasing use, and abuse, of existing antibiotics in human and veterinary medicine and in agriculture. 4 Nowadays, about 70 percent of the bacteria that cause infections in infirmary are resistant to at least one of the drug most commonly used for handling. 5 Some organisms are resistant to all approved antibiotics and can only be treated with experimental and potentially toxic drugs. An alarming increase in immunity of bacteria that cause community acquired infections has also been documented, especially in the staphylococci and pneumococci, which are prevalent causes of disease and mortality. 6 In a recent study, 25 percent of bacterial pneumonia cases were

Since the beginning of the antibiotic error in the mid 20th century, antimicrobial resistance has been recognized. The increased use of antimicrobial agents in the recent years has resulted in the development of resistance to these drugs. Clinical threats have however been minimized by the availability of newer agents (Bonomo & Tolmasky 2007). The World Health Organization (WHO) defines antimicrobial resistance as the resistance of a microorganism to an antimicrobial medicine to which it was previously sensitive (WHO 2012). A variety of resistance mechanisms have been developed by bacteria to counter the introduction of successive classes of antibiotics. This has lead to heightened interest in the study of antimicrobial

It is vital for the global community to recognize the dangers of antibiotic resistance and the importance of addressing it. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), “antibiotic resistance is one of the biggest threats to global health, food security, and development today” (INSERT CITATION). Before the development of antibiotics, infectious diseases, such as bacterial meningitis and strep throat, killed thousands of people, especially children, a year. These once-fatal diseases are now easily treatable with antibiotics. However, the rise of antibiotic resistance threatens to make these diseases fatal once again. Compounding the issue of increasing resistance is the slow development of new antibiotics. Only two new classes of antibiotics have been developed and placed on the marker in the past few decades (Battle super bugs citation). Antibiotic resistance has tremendous implications for global health and economics, as discussed in this section.