Antibiotic Resistance

Antiobiotic Resistance

• The Microbes Fight Back: Antibiotic Resistance by Laura Bowater (2017)
  • This book begins by looking back at how infectious diseases, such as smallpox and The Plague, were able to wreak havoc on populations before the discovery of the first antibiotics. These then revolutionised the medical world. In an engaging and accessible style, Professor Bowater takes the reader through how antibiotics are made, how bacteria are able to mutate and develop resistance and she explains why there is now a lack of new antibiotic drugs coming to market. What will a future of continued antibiotic resistance look like? How can human activities prevent the rise of 'superbugs'?
• Missing Microbes: How the Overuse of Antibiotics is Fueling our Modern Plagues by Martin J. Blaser (2014)
  • Blaser invites us into the wilds of the human microbiome, where for hundreds of thousands of years bacterial and human cells have existed in a peaceful symbiosis that is responsible for the equilibrium and health of our bodies. Now this invisible Eden is under assault from our overreliance on medical advances including antibiotics and caesarian sections, threatening the extinction of our irreplaceable microbes and leading to severe health consequences.
• Pandemics: What Everyone Needs to Know by P. C. Doherty (2013)
  • Nobel Prize-winning immunologist Peter C. Doherty addresses the history of pandemics and explores the ones that persist today. He considers what promotes global spread, the types of pathogens most present today and the level of threat they pose, and how tocombat outbreaks and mitigate their effects.
• Microbes and Evolution: The World that Darwin Never Saw by Roberto Kolter (2012)
  • Features 40 first-person essays written by microbiologists with a passion for evolutionary biology, whose thinking and career paths in science were influenced by Darwin's seminal work. Includes personal viewpoints on the importance of evolutionary principles in the study of a variety of aspects of life science, from taxonomy, speciation, adaptation, social structure, and symbiosis to antibiotic resistance, genetics, and genomics.
• Antibiotics and Antibiotic Resistance by Ola Sköld (Translation of Antibiotika och Antibiotikaresistens) (2011)
  • This book [translated from Swedish] combines a general introduction of a variety of antibiotics with a more in-depth discussion of resistance. The focus on resistance in learning about antibiotics will help future scientists recognize the problem antibiotics resistance poses for medicinal and drug-related fields, and perhaps trigger more research and discoveries to fight antibiotic resistant strains.
• Beyond Antibiotics: Strategies for Living in a World of Emerging Infections and Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria by Michael A. Schmidt (2009)
  • At a time when the numbers of emerging infections and antibiotic-resistant bacteria are rising sharply, the supply of new antibiotic drugs has been steadily decreasing. In addition, many health providers have failed to consider that our bodies are cloaked in a blanket of bacteria so pervasive that the bacterial cells outnumber our "human" cells by a factor of ten. In short, we are living in a microbe's world and cannot ignore the very real potential for untreatable serious infections.

A World Without Antibiotics

In thinking about what a world with antibiotic-resistant microorganisms would be like, consider taking a look at some of these historical perspectives on times before we had antibiotics.

• Revolutionary Medicine: The Founding Fathers and Mothers in Sickness and in Health by Jeanne E. Abrams (2013)
  • Before the advent of modern antibiotics, one's life could be abruptly shattered by contagion and death, and debility from infectious diseases and epidemics was commonplace for early Americans. Revolutionary Medicine refocuses the study of the lives of George and Martha Washington, Benjamin Franklin, ThomasJefferson, John and Abigail Adams, and James and Dolley Madison away from the usual lens of politics to the unique perspective of sickness, health, and medicine in their era.
• The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, The Most Devastating Plague of All Time by John Kelly (2006)
  • The Great Mortality is the extraordinary epic account of the worst natural disaster in European history -- a drama of courage, cowardice, misery, madness, and sacrifice that brilliantly illuminates humankind's darkest days when an old world ended and a new world was born.
• Pneumonia Before Antibiotics: Therapeutic Evolution and Evaluation in Twentieth-century America by Scott H. Podolsky (2006)
  • See review in the New England Journal of Medicine

Research Tip: While government hearings and reports can be valuable sources of information (albeit a little dry in reading), you can also use them as "jumping-off points" by doing additional searches in databases or the Internet for the experts and terminology referenced in them.

• Report to the President on Combating Antibiotic Resistance from The President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (2014).
• 21st Century Cures: Examining Ways to Combat Antibiotic Resistance and Foster New Drug Development: Hearing before the Subcommittee on Health of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, House of Representatives, One Hundred Thirteenth Congress, Second Session, September 19, 2014. (Video of the hearing is also available here.)
• Antibiotic Resistance: Data gaps will remain despite HHS taking steps to improve monitoring: Report to the Committee on Agriculture, House of Representatives. (2011)
• Antibiotic Resistance and the Threat to Public Health: Hearing before the Subcommittee on Health of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, House of Representatives, One Hundred Eleventh Congress, second session, April 28, 2010.

The government also publishes helpful websites and brochures on a variety of topics, including antibiotic resistance.

• Get Smart: Know When Antiobiotics Work series from the Centers for Disease Control includes brochures such as:
  • Cold or Flu, Antibiotics Don't Work for You.
  • Snort, Sniffle, Sneeze, No Antiobiotics Please.