Just saw this story
uk.yahoo.com
And it reminds me I've sometimes wondered if antibiotic resistance is something that can increase without limit?
Surely for a bacteria to become resistant to an antibiotic it has to change in some way? So is there no sense in which that's a zero-sum game, i.e. that in becoming resistant to one anti-biotic does it not open itself up to some other one? I get the impression that's not the case, that there are in fact a finite number of antibiotics and the danger is a pathogen could become resistant to every one of them, but I don't understand why it works like that.
My naive thought is that to become resistant to _every_ type of antibiotic a bacteria would have to be infinitely complicated, with so many different 'defences' that it wouldn't function as a bacteria any more? Like a tank with such thick armour it can no longer move.
I mean, with, say, military hardware, it's an arms-race, and for each measure there's a counter-measure and a counter-counter-measure, and so on. Why is it so hard to find new "attack vectors" when bacteria mutate? Why is it such a one-sided arms race?
Common antibiotic use linked to rise of ‘almost untreatable’ superbug
Rifaximin is commonly used to treat liver disease
And it reminds me I've sometimes wondered if antibiotic resistance is something that can increase without limit?
Surely for a bacteria to become resistant to an antibiotic it has to change in some way? So is there no sense in which that's a zero-sum game, i.e. that in becoming resistant to one anti-biotic does it not open itself up to some other one? I get the impression that's not the case, that there are in fact a finite number of antibiotics and the danger is a pathogen could become resistant to every one of them, but I don't understand why it works like that.
My naive thought is that to become resistant to _every_ type of antibiotic a bacteria would have to be infinitely complicated, with so many different 'defences' that it wouldn't function as a bacteria any more? Like a tank with such thick armour it can no longer move.
I mean, with, say, military hardware, it's an arms-race, and for each measure there's a counter-measure and a counter-counter-measure, and so on. Why is it so hard to find new "attack vectors" when bacteria mutate? Why is it such a one-sided arms race?
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