Antibiotic Class: Fill & Download for Free

Resistance to commonly used antibiotic classes is indeed an ancient feature of the biosphere. However, what is changing is the frequency at which these are found in common human pathogens. Clinical use of beta lactams has seen the acquisition of resistance in pathogens ever since the first use of penicillin.So this is a clinical observation: agents that once could be counted on to stifle serious bacterial infections can no longer be relied upon.The mechanisms are ancient, but their movement into disease agents is recent.

typical drugs for acne are tetracyclines/minocycline/doxycycline. Typically they aren’t crucial antibiotics classes. I think if it’s the only therapy that works for your acne, its reasonable to go head with it. If it does change your flora, when you stop it, the flora will return normal eventually.

Even Alexander Fleming, the scientist who discovered penicillin, was concerned about the future of antibiotics. In a 1945 interview with the New York Times, he called for limiting the use of penicillin to slow the development of antibiotic resistance.The problem of antibiotic-resistant bacteria has ballooned since then. In a recent annual report on global risks, the World Economic Forum (WEF) concluded that antibiotic resistance was one of the greatest risks to human health, and that “we will never be able to stay ahead of the mutation curve” that invariably leads to antibiotic resistance.Current approaches to address antibiotic resistance, which primarily include antibiotic stewardship programs that aim to limit use in the medical setting, are a good start, but will likely fall short in solving the problem. Development of new antibiotics would be one way to combat resistance, but antibiotic development has slowed dramatically over the last few decades. Between 1928 and the 1970s, around 270 new antibiotics were approved. In the last 15 years, despite the growing resistance problem, only 14 new antibiotics were introduced to the market. And the last truly new class of antibiotics was developed over 30 years ago.Experts say we need to go much further on both of these fronts – limiting antibiotic use, and promoting further development – than we currently are. They recommend measures that would cut down on the irresponsible use of antibiotics in livestock, which currently amounts to over 13 million kilograms per year -- four times the amount of antibiotic that is administered to humans. We cannot hope to combat resistance while dumping massive amounts of antibiotics into the environment.We must also go further to encourage the development of new antibiotic classes. One approach is to develop public-private partnerships that could align the interests of the pharmaceutical industry with unmet needs of the medical community. A new regulatory approach to rapidly approve new antibiotics, such as the Limited Population Antibiotic Drug (LPAD) proposal form, has also been discussed.Many experts have also proposed novel ways to combat the problem that go beyond just limiting antibiotic usage and creating new antibiotics. One idea is to create new therapeutics to attack bacteria in a manner that does not breed resistance, such as using targeted monoclonal antibodies (molecules that reliably bind to specific proteins expressed by pathogens) or re-engineered white blood cells that would hone in on bacteria. Others have proposed a strategy in which infection is treated without actually killing the causative bacteria. Instead, the body’s immune response to the pathogen – which is ultimately what causes disease – would be the target. Early ideas have included anti-inflammatory therapies, probiotics that would compete with bacterial pathogens, and the use of nutrient-sequestration in the host that would create a resource-poor environment in which bacteria cannot reproduce.The crisis of antibiotic resistance, coupled with massive overuse and collapse of antibiotic research, could indeed be catastrophic for human health if not adequately addressed. The issue must be viewed as one of the major public health risks of our time, and should be addressed with a united, multidisciplinary approach.