What causes antimicrobial resistance?
Current science doesn’t really prove what causes the types of antimicrobial resistance that create public health risks. Antimicrobial resistance can be caused by “selection pressure.” Regardless of how effective an antimicrobial might be, rarely, if ever, will 100% of the organisms killed during a course of treatment. This means that at least one organism out of thousands may have developed resistance to the antimicrobial. The few surviving and potentially resistant organisms could then transfer their genetic material to offspring or even other unrelated organisms. There are also some who say that antimicrobial resistance is caused by widespread use of antimicrobials in food production systems. Their argument is that the more antimicrobials are used in animals, the more we expose the organisms to the antimicrobials and give them the opportunity to develop resistance. Although that may be true in a very simplified, general sense, there is no scientific evidence of how, if or to what ext
Current science can’t really prove what causes all of the different types of antimicrobial resistance that create public health risks. Antimicrobial resistance can be caused by “selection pressure.” Regardless of how effective an antimicrobial might be, rarely, if ever, will 100% of the organisms be killed during a course of treatment. This means that at least one organism out of thousands may have developed resistance to the antimicrobial. The few surviving and potentially resistant organisms could then transfer their genetic material to offspring or even other unrelated organisms. There are also some who say that antimicrobial resistance is caused by widespread use of antimicrobials in food production systems. Their argument is that the more antimicrobials are used in animals, the more we expose the organisms to the antimicrobials and give them the opportunity to develop resistance. Although that may be true in a very simplified, general sense, the scientific evidence of how, if or t
