As a result, fewer new students specialized in bacterial physiology, and federal funders shifted their focus to more immediately pressing diseases, as did many pharmaceutical companies. But while everyone forgot about the bacteria, the bacteria didn't completely abandon their unwilling hosts.
Today, nearly all strains of Staphylococcus aureus, an organism that causes skin, bone, lung, and bloodstream infections, now resist penicillin. Many do the same to methicillin, and some even resist vancomycin, long considered the only uniformly effective drug for methicillin-resistant S. aureus, according to the Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention (CDC). The agency also estimates that 30% of Streptococcus pneumoniae-caused pneumonia, meningitis, and ear infections no longer respond to penicillin. In fact, about 70% of bacteria found in hospitals resist at least one of the drugs most commonly used to treat infection, according to CDC estimates. Antibiotics resistance continues to increase; much of it occurs from misuse. Physicians ...
