That’s what you call antibiotic resistance
Superbugs are the bacteria that have acquired resistance to antibiotics. Um, not good. We have no way of beating these resistant bacteria once we’re infected, no way to speed up getting rid of them, it’s up to our own immune systems and sometimes that’s not enough. Resistant bacteria have developed defensive mechanisms to the only offensive move we know – antibiotics. If we loose the ability to use antibiotics we may no longer be able to treat bacterial infections. The number of deaths from bacterial infections will soar and we’ll have no other option but to come up with new ways to fight them. Antibiotics are like nonrenewable resources, once we exhaust them, they’re done – and we’ll have to find a new resource to use. The trick is to use them responsibly without completely using them up.
Miss-use of antibiotics is causing the emergence of antibiotic resistant organisms. People are taking them too often for things that aren’t bacterial infections, not taking them for the required dose – allowing the stronger ones to survive, and giving them to farm animals that excrete them into the environment.
For the cows?
We use antibiotics in farm animal production to fatten them up for sale. Cattle animals are grown on a steady stream of antibiotics from the time they’re born as just another ingredient of their feed. Some companies claim to be antibiotic free but we don’t necessarily know how long the animals have not been on antibiotics. Meat is considered antibiotic free if, by the time it reaches the market, it has no antibiotic residue. This means that cattle could have been raised on antibiotics their whole life and only taken off of them two weeks before sale in order to pass the drug test. Why are we wasting these miracle drugs on COWS?! There’s gotta be better ways people.
The 411 on things new and resistant
Some new organisms, as discussed by the Center For Infectious Disease Research and Policy, that are becoming resistant include Candida auris and Acinetobacter. Candida auris is a multi-drug resistant fungus that spreads quickly and has a very high death rate to boast about- one in three people will die once infected. Symptoms of Candida auris include fever, chills, and sepsis which can lead to coma, organ failure, and possibly death. Acinetobacter is becoming carbapenem-resistant and can cause UTIs, pneumonia, sepsis, and meningitis. These diseases are extremely worrisome because they can be very severe and now may be unstoppable. It’s like we used to have bear traps but now they’ve all rusted and all we can do is run.
E. coli’s growing resistance
An article by Siedlce University of Natural Sciences and Humanities discusses E. coli’s growing resistance to antibiotics. They have found that in many countries, E. coli is developing resistance to trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole, which is the first go-to treatment for UTIs, some strains have up to 60% resistance. Also, the resistance to fluoroquinolones can range up to 85% due to the widespread use of them in outpatients. Once these antibiotics are exhausted we’ll have to find a new way to treat E. coli infections which will take who knows how many years of research and development, and in the meantime we will just have to suffer with the UTIs and other diseases. IDK about you, but that ish is not fun. SO PLEASE, be responsible with your antibiotics and take them as DIRECTED. Read all of the info – did you know you’re supposed to take them at the same time each day? Not just once a day, but at the SAME TIME? ON THE DOT? You would if you cared about using antibiotics responsibly and about the health of our societies. Tea.
microBIOLOGY 