"Antibiotic Resistance"
I. Abstract
When penicillin was first administered in 1943, it proved to be extraordinary at wiping out nasty cases of syphilis, tuberculosis, gonorrhea, and meningitis infection. With the threat of these deadly infections in ‘check,’ pharmaceutical industries then cut back on their research to discover even more effective antibiotics. This new-found medical confidence inspired patients to merrily run to the clinic to get penicillin prescriptions for everything from nausea and diarrhea to running nose and sneezing, and doctors to happily prescribe the ‘miracle drug.’
However, microorganisms are now evolving and developing unprecedented resistance to penicillin and other once potent drugs, like vancomyocin. Currently, vancomyocin is the most potent drug on the market, and ¼ of all enterococci are resistant to it ("A New Gap…," 1997). In the April 28, 1994 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers identified a bacteria that was resistant to all antibiotics (Lewis, 1997).
The number of resistant strains of bacteria are rapidly growing, and a panic is beginning to spread in the medical field, as it has been caught ‘off-guard’ by the most recent developments. It takes decades to develop new antibiotics, and the pharmaceutical industries have spent the last few decades focusing on other concerns. Even though our arsenal of antibiotics is diminishing, it is clear that there will be no new ‘miracle drugs’ for quite some time. Since we will soon run out of effective antibiotics, we must do what we can to preserve the potency of our current resources.
This paper will provide a background on how antibiotics work and also on the mechanism by which bacteria acquire resistance. Also part ...
... middle of paper ...
...bson, David. (1997b). How does resistance occur? [Online] Available:
http://www3.hmc.edu/~dgibson/antibiotics/resistance.html.
King, John W. M.D. (1997). Antibiotic Resistance. [Online] Available:
http://www.ccm.Isumc.edu/bugbytes/bb-v2n13.htm.
Lewis, Ricki PhD. (1997). The Rise of Antibiotic-Resistant Infections. [Online]
Available: http://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/795_antibio.html.
Nemecek, Sasha. (1997, Feb). Beating Bacteria. Scientific American, 38-39.
(1997, June). A New Gap In The Antibiotic Arsenal. Science News, 151, 348.
(1996, May). Reducing Antibiotic Resistance. Nature, 381, 120-121.
Smaglik, Paul. (1997, May 17). Proliferation of Pills. Science News, 151, 310-311.
Thompson, Clare. (1997, June 8). False Economies Breed Superbugs. New Scientist,
6.
Travis, John. (1996, June 1). Biological Warfare. Science News, 149, 350-351.
Turk, Sarah. "Ambulance Services in the US." IBISWorld. N.p., Oct. 2013. Web. 7 Mar. 2014.
In this report I will focus on desirable traits the Columbus Division of fire are looking for, as well as the City’s hiring process, training requirements, offered benefits, probationary period, promotional opportunities, and departmental structure. I will also...
Head scientist of the antibiotic research center at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ohio, Gerry Wright, has studied the genes of 500 streptomyces strains, a type of bacteria, many of which had never previously been identified. All 500 strains held antibiotic-resistance genes and on average were resistant to 8 of 21 tested antibiotics (Sachs). With an average resistance rate as high as 67 percent in some of these streptomyces species, it is evident that antibiotic-resistance is a rising problem. Regardless of the countless studies proving antibiotic-resistance and articles about the subject, it is one the public knows little about. With such a history of antibiotic benefits, it is difficult to perceive the negative affects these drugs have. This is the main reason antibiotic studies are disregarded. If the large majority of the population continues to do little to avert antibiotic-resistance, bacteria will evolve beyond medical treatment. Actions must be taken by the community as a whole, and even further by the individual, to “reduce the spread of microbes and improve our defense against them” (Schmidt 272). Although antibiotic resistance is inevitable, humans are accelerating the natural defense of microbes through the overuse and misuse of antibiotics.
Cooper, Charlie. “Hyperactivity or Just Hype?.” The Independent. 20 Aug. 2013: 34. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 19 Feb. 2014.
College sports are a major revenue producing industry. Athletic programs and their student-athletes can achieve national recognition and generate millions of dollars in revenue for their university. Colleges use this revenue to invest in players, pay for their education, and provide state of the art training facilities, which are used to improve their athletic performance. As revenue driven colleges begin to prioritize athletics, the emphasis on the quality and standards of an undergraduate education are diminishing. Compromising their academic acceptance requirements, universities have now found that the educational ability of their newly accepted student athletes are inadequate, to say the least (Gurney). The same universities must then spend millions of dollars to provide these athletes with “learning specialists”, who in turn helps them to meet academic requirements and maintain their eligibility (...
Lee, Brian. "Are college sports worth the cost?" PBS (2011): 2. online. 20 November 2013. .
For many years we have become increasingly dependant on antibiotics to fight off the bacteria that cause diseases in our bodies. Many of the diseases these bacteria and microbes cause are infectious. For these reasons, it has been noticed that bacteria and other microbes are becoming increasingly resistant to the antibiotics prescribed to sick people. Many doctors prescribe antibiotics for common illnesses, yet other medicines such as home remedies and homeopathy could be used instead. As a result, we are using antibiotics too often, as many sources claim we should only be using them once every three years.”Bacteria have shown a remarkable ability to endure and adapt to their environment including the development of different mechanisms of resistance to most old and new antimicrobial agents”. Because of the frequent prescription, the bacteria and microbes that cause these illnesses are exposed to the same type of antibiotics frequently, thus they are able to adapt and build up resilience against these antibiotics. “Bacteria have developed resistance to all different classes of antibiotics discovered to date” . This is a major problem as we rely so heavily on antibiotics to treat serious illnesses that we are running out of options to treat them with. The prescribing of antibiotics for illnesses that are not life-threatening are now resulting in fewer solutions to cure people affected by diseases that can be fatal.
In the study the graduate student, Mary Willingham a learning specialist now found that some student athletes she had worked with and researched read at a middle school or lower reading level. Willingham explains that she encountered many athletes who faced many academic problems which she admits to helping them get around standards set by the NCAA. In the article written by Ganium, she reports that as CNN did extensive research they found that UNC-Chapel Hill wasn’t the only college guilty of admitting athletes whose academic abilities were less than college level twenty-one colleges to be
For decades there has been a debate on student athletes and their drive to succeed in the classroom. From the very beginning of organized college level athletics, the goal to want to succeed in athletics has forced students to put academics to the back burner. In spite of the goal to want to succeed over a hundred years of attempts to check limits of intercollegiate athletic programs on colleges' academic standards still seems to struggle to this day. This brings to surface one of the most asked questions in sports, “What effect does college sports have on academics and economics?” Herbert D. Simons, Derek Van Rheenen, and Martin V. Covington, authors of “Academic Motivation and the Student Athlete” researched the topic on whether athletics and academics benefit each other. Bryan Flynn, the author of “College Sports vs. Academics” poses the question “Should institutions of higher learning continue to involve themselves in athletic programs that often turn out to be virtual arms races for recruiting talented players who bring big money and prestige, but put academics to the back burner?” Although both authors agree that sports have an impact on an athlete’s academics, the focus of their argument differs.
At his Nobel Peace Prize speech in 1945, Alexander Fleming warned against the misuse of antibiotics and the fact that by doing this, one allows the bacteria to ‘become educated’ and therefore become resistant to the antibiotic. It is believed that the first cases of antibiotic resistance were shortly after this speech. (Fleming, 1945)
The article “an introduction to climate change” describes in detail about the causes of climate change, and its potential effect on earth. According to this article, the global warming is due to the accumulation of carbon dioxide and other pollutants formed from burning fossil fuels that accumulate on earth’s atmosphere so that light rays are reflected back to the earth surface causing the atmospheric air to heat up. In addition, the article also gives some relevant solutions to global warming such as reducing air pollution and use of “clean energy.”
Thesis: With the advent of antibiotics in 1929 Fleming said, "The time may come when penicillin can be bought by anyone in the shops.Then there is the danger that the ignorant man may easily underdose himself and by exposing his microbes to non-lethal quantities of the drug make them resistant."With the overuse of antibiotics today we have seen this very idea come to be.Over usage is caused most prevalently by a lack of education on the part of the patient.Thus stated, the way to overcome such a circumstance is to educate, not only the patient but also the physician.
The advent of penicillin forever changed the world of medicine at its discovery with its ability to treat diseases, deadly at the time, that are now considered commonplace and easily treatable. Penicillin was one of the greatest discoveries of the twentieth century, as antibiotics are one of the most highly prescribed drugs in the world today. Although its discovery is often described as serendipitous, the process by which it was cultivated was quite meticulous, and continued attention has been paid to penicillin's further development. It is because penicillin and its derivatives have played such a vital role in everyday medicine that it is such an important topic.
2017. The Discovery of Penicillin—New Insights After More Than 75 Years of Clinical Use. Emerging Infectious Diseases, 23: 849-853.