Antibiotics Future Summary

Improved Essays
For more than 70 years, antibiotics have been used to treat bacterial infections of the body. The first appearance of this life changing medicine, was in the 1940’s on the battlefield. This medicine was named penicillin, the drug saved many from the brink of death, by fighting bacterial diseases; from then on antibiotics changed the face of medicine. Infection was no longer an impregnable wall that had to be broken down before the real treatment could begin, infections could be treated on site, at moments notice. As time passed, the world became co-dependent on the use of antibiotics to treat all of the body 's infections, and was repeatedly misused. Maryn McKenna proposed in her essay“ Imagining the Post- Antibiotics Future.” that people need to cherish the availability of antibiotics. McKenna also argues that even though surviving a post- antibiotic era may seem inconceivable, because of the fact that antibiotics have become highly addictive to the everyday lifestyle, it can become accessible with the persistence of change within the administration of Antibiotics. …show more content…
She began stating, “ Predictions that we might sacrifice the antibiotic miracle have been around almost as long as the drug themselves.” Then, McKenna introduced a Nobel Prize in (Medicine) winner, Alexander Fleming, to solidify her idea that “bacteria would develop defense against the compounds...” then continues to explain why no action was taken against antibiotics.( McKenna 189) So, the use of antibiotics began to grow, because the public would not take value in this miracle drug, and immediately became immensely overused as displayed in the beginning of the original form of antibiotics, “penicillin- resistant staph emerged in the 1940’s...” followed by six different forms of antibiotics that were also developed, then resisted by human body 's shortly after. (McKenna

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Antibiotics I. Introduction 1. Attention Getter: “Fungi are the interface organisms between life and death” by Paul Stamets 2. Relation: How many of you used antibiotic during your life time? 3. Thesis: For many years the human population has benefited from antibiotics; however is still many are not education on antibiotics.…

    • 501 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The novel, The Demon Under The Microscope From Battlefield Hospitals to Nazi Labs, is a nonfiction narrative which discusses the revolution of medicine and medical practices through the discovery of the antibacterial/ antibiotic medicines: sulfa and prontosil. Gerhard Domagk, former medical practitioner during WWI and pathologist/ bacteriologist, made significant contributions to the discovery of antibiotics. Domagk worked as a German medical assistant, and it was here his determination to protect patients from bacteria blossomed. In the field, he observed horrid medical tactics, for example “all the medical staff [would be] dizzy from exhaustion and from breathing the ether and chloroform.” Furthermore, “assistants like Domagk worked bare-handed…

    • 235 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Dalise Atwell BIO 212 Dr. Boles Excelsior College Penicillin and its Impact on Microbiology Penicillin has saved many lives past and current. “Before the discovery and use of penicillin, infectious diseases had been the leading cause of death throughout history. Furthermore, the therapeutic tools available for treating infections were few and of limited use. ”(Kardos 2011) Penicillin has been the drug of choice when treating many diseases.…

    • 1218 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Thesis statement Penicillin was the first antibiotic created. It helped fight the spread of disease and infections saving millions of lives. body.…

    • 113 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Decent Essays

    What comes to your mind when you get sick? Do you recall that little capsule that you drink? That little capsule is an antibiotic. It is accountable for over 2 million reported cases of superbug infections worldwide and 23,000 lives that are taken away from their beloved annually (Slaughter 1). Have you ever imagined that a small cut on your finger could possibly take away your life in the future?…

    • 188 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Great Essays

    Inappropriate use of antibiotics has been linked to a number of causes, including people insisting antibiotics, doctors prescribing them because they do not have time to explain why they are not necessary, and doctors not knowing when to prescribe antibiotics or being too careful about prescribing them. At least one third of people believe that antibiotics are effective for the flu, and it is the most common reason antibiotics are prescribed even though they are ineffective against viruses. If we continue to overuse antibiotics, diseases that are currently treatable will become incurable and millions of people will die as a result of this. Society can prevent infections from becoming incurable in the future by not overusing antibiotics, finishing antibiotics even if the infection is gone and not using…

    • 1222 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Antibiotics are medications that help to treat people who have developed a bacterial infection. These medications have been prescribed by physicians for the past 70 years for various types of illnesses. However, if a person has a viral infection (for example the common cold or the flu), antibiotics will not just be ineffective but can even make a person sicker. Even still, physicians are prescribing antibiotics to demanding patients, which along with other conditions has contributed to what the media is now calling “the War on Superbugs.” These “superbugs” are really just bacteria that have learned to evolve around antibiotics, thus rendering the drugs useless.…

    • 513 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    S. Aureus (MRSA)

    • 711 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Since the development of penicillin, countless lives have been saved over the years but over-prescribing and misuse of the medication has played a large role in the antibiotic resistance crisis. As a result, resistant strains of S. aureus have grown and spread into the community, some even showing resistance to multiple antibiotics (Ventola, 2015). Prior to the discovery of penicillin, death due to bacterial infections was quite common. When penicillin was first introduced to the public in the 1940's, it was found to be very effective at curing bacterial illnesses and also played an immense role in controlling infections during WWII. 10 years after it's introduction to the public, the first case of penicillin resistant S. aureus was…

    • 711 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Labrie explains that the “ Two cases were studied in effort […] maintain a balance between dialectal reasonableness and rhetorical effectiveness, as well as an equilibrium between patient participation and evidence-based medicine” (p.109). Research by Prasad and Cifu (2012) also discusses antibiotics as a form of treatment. They mention a drug named atenolol that debuted in 1976. Both of them express concerns about how “ Although we are in the third decade of ‘evidence-based medicine’, we continue to introduce practices well before we have the data to support their use” ( p.73) they believe that patients need to listen to the doctor recommendations because often the quick option can bring more and bigger problems than before. Theses quick option can result in being more expensive than a treatment that a doctor is more certain that can work for a patient.…

    • 564 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Antibiotics were a pivotal discovery which saved many lives during epidemics and pandemics over the recent centuries. During the 1920’s a scientist named Alexander Fleming was working as the professor of bacteriology in London at St. Mary's Hospital. Alexander was working on staphylococcus and had left some on the table which got contaminated. Later a colony was spotted in one of the samples resembling a white fluffy mass which multiplied rapidly and caused the staphylococcus to become transparent.…

    • 1254 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) became focused on the issue of antibiotics and resistant bacteria. In the Cathcart article, she includes that CDC found that there have been 2,049,442 illnesses and 23,000 deaths in the United States that could have been treated with antibiotics had the bacteria that infected and killed these people not become resistant to it on the farms. These alarming numbers show how fast and problematic this issue is becoming as it turns into a health epidemic. In addition, Cathcart…

    • 1941 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    As the American populous swayed with the beat of the Big Band era, so did pharmacology sway into action with the upbeat tone of the dawning antibiotic era. Antibiotics are medicine, such as penicillin or its derivatives, that inhibits the growth of or destroys microorganisms. The discovery and development of new antibiotics in the 40’s changed the way people lived by advancing the way infections and diseases were treated, the way live stock was grown, and the improvement of the quality of life in the United States. Sir Alexander Fleming, was a biologist, pharmacologist and botanist, he is known for the discovery of the antibiotic substance benzylpenicillin, Penicillin, from the mould Penicillium notatum in 1928. Penicillin is an antibiotic or group of antibiotics produced naturally by certain blue molds, and now usually prepared synthetically.…

    • 777 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Infectious Diseases Society of America 's (IDSA) ultimately desires to create public policy and research activities that will salvage the damage of the overuse of antibiotics and save lives (Clinical). The GAIN act should be bolstered to make sure that antibiotics are being used appropriately (Clinical). An ‘Antibiotic Innovation and Conservation (AIC) Fee’ should be created where 75 percent of the funding should go towards the monetary funds of antibiotic development and the other 25 percent should be applied towards the funding of antimicrobial stewardship (Clinical). Public Health Antimicrobial Advisory Board (PHAAB) should recognize “priority pathogens” to pinpoint “incentives” within the Strategies to Address Antimicrobial Resistance (STAAR)…

    • 1390 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Iron Lung Research Paper

    • 739 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Many people in developed countries tend to take technological advancements for granted. They do not realize how fortunate we are to have access to lifesaving medicine as easy as walking to the pharmacy. Without the discovery of penicillin, insulin and the first respirator, also known as the “Iron lung” many more people would have perished as a result due to bacterial infections, diabetes and polio. These technological advancements in medicine have allowed doctors to save many lives and discover newer methods of treating patients. Before the introduction of penicillin there was no effective treatment for infections such as pneumonia, gonorrhea or rheumatic fever.…

    • 739 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The use of antibiotics should be restricted to the public, due to the fact that, antibiotics often: affect the wrong bacteria, do not treat the viruses, and are often overused. Antibiotics were created in order to fight off bacterial infections in the body, in the early 1940’s. According to, A Brief History of Antibiotics, “Alexander Fleming, was the first scientist to discover one of the first antibiotics known as penicillin” (BBC…

    • 1087 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays