Why Are Antibiotics Important?

Antibiotics are used worldwide and although their uses have helped many people, it doesn't come without risk. The use of antibiotics treats people and animals alike to cure infection and are easily excusable through physicians. However in recent years, since antibiotics are used so universally, antibiotic- resistant strains have become a growing problem. This suggest that the bacteria is adapting to the antibiotics and through natural selection, the antibiotic- resistant bacteria have grown in numbers. The scientific community worries about future treatment of diseases if the bacteria continues to adapt. For example tuberculosis which hasn't been a problem in some time, has started to reoccur as a much harder to treat strain. Antibiotics are the go to method of treating infection but we need to be careful when we are using them.

However, scientist have begun to find that farm animals such as chickens have bacteria in their food that has resisted even the strongest antibiotics. This is extremely worrying because animals such as chickens, cows and pigs are consumed by people. Which means that if the animals is infected, the infection can pass to the human population. For now these bacterias are harmless but the problem still remains; what would happen if out animal food supply is infected and we are unable to cure it? The bacteria are adapting through a process called natural selection. Natural selection is the way the environmental conditions determined which organism survive to reproduce. This applies to antibiotics because the bacteria that develops mutations that are resistant to antibiotics survive and reproduce. The overuse of antibiotics allows the bacteria through the process of natural selection to adapt faster and than reproduce the antibiotic resistant bacteria as a more common