Antibiotic Resistance: Understanding and Responding to an Emerging Crisis, by Karl S. Drlica and David Perlin
Book Description
Once hailed as “magic bullets,” antibiotics are now used so widely that their success is threatening their effectiveness. The natural mutability of microbes is enabling pathogens to develop bulletproof shields that make antibiotic treatments useless. Meanwhile, it has become increasingly difficult to replace failing treatments with newer, more powerful antibiotics. If we fail to address resistance, we may lose control of infectious diseases, reverting back to the dangerous era before penicillin.
Fortunately, new ideas and principles have emerged for slowing the development of antibiotic resistance, both in individual patients and in the human population as a whole. Antibiotic Resistance introduces these crucial ideas to everyone who makes decisions about antibiotic use: doctors, medical providers, and healthcare administrators; public health professionals and government regulators; farmers and agricultural providers; and especially, individual patients.