For decades, large groups of East Africa's population have been exposed to antibiotics for
“experimental purposes.” Many drugs that are banned in industrialized nations because of their life-
endangering side effects are being sold in the drug stores of developing countries. Their powerful
immune-suppressive effects may explain the appearance of many new types of diseases that have never
occurred in Africa before. Consequently, these immune-suppressive drugs may have actually triggered the
recurrence of old infectious diseases, such as tuberculosis.
Biological Warfare
The antibiotic approach to treating infections is costing human society more than anyone could have
anticipated. The bugs that were “successfully” subdued with antibiotics for decades are now taking
revenge by producing what is known as “antibiotic-resistant organisms,” that is, superbugs that defy
antibiotic treatment. Some 90,000 Americans suffer potentially deadly infections each year from a drug-
resistant “staph superbug.” According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC), more people now
die from these superbugs than from AIDS diseases. Recent nationwide outbreaks of infections caused by
superbugs killed teenagers in U.S. schools, reflecting the natural consequence of indiscriminate and
irresponsible use of antibiotics in this country.
Previously only found in hospital settings, the drug-resistant staph germ is now spreading through
prisons, gyms and locker rooms, and poor urban neighborhoods. It can enter the blood, kidneys, liver,
lungs and muscles around the heart. Most cases exhibit life-threatening bloodstream infections. However,
about 10 percent of the cases involved the so-called flesh-eating disease, according to the study led by
researchers at the federal CDC. It is estimated that 18,650 people die annually from this particular
superbug, which is about 1,500 more than die from AIDS in the U.S. each year.
It is a law of nature that every living organism wants to live and survive for as long as it possibly can.
Bacteria that are exposed to regular supplies of the poisonous antibiotic substances will, therefore, try to
become immune to the poisons. To survive such assaults, bacteria have their own sophisticated defense
strategies, which are in a way similar to ours when we need to defend ourselves against invasive bacteria
or viruses. One possible way for bacteria to evade an antibiotic attack is to mutate their genes. As a result,
the bacteria become resistant to the active ingredients of a drug, which subsequently renders the drug
ineffective.
You may have wondered why so many brands of antibiotics stay on the market for relatively short
periods of time. One reason for this is that the bacteria keep outsmarting the antibiotics, and more
powerful drugs are then needed kill the newly created strains of bacteria. Another reason for withdrawing
brands from the market is the increasingly frequent occurrence of serious side effects that arise from
repeatedly giving the drugs to the same patients.
The more we use these drugs, the more resistant the bacteria will become. Top researchers in this field
already admit that they are fighting a losing battle. We have overused antibiotics to a degree that every
disease-causing bacterium has now developed mutated versions that resist at least one antibiotic.
When an antibiotic attacks a colony of bacteria, most of them die. Yet some of the microbes survive
because they harbor mutant genes that resist destruction. These mutant bacteria then pass on their resistant
genes to other bacteria, and within 24 hours each of them may have left an estimated 16,777,220
offspring, equally resistant to the antibiotic.
The nightmare doesn’t stop here. The mutant bacteria begin to share their resistant genes with other
unrelated microbes they contact, making all sorts of microorganisms resistant to treatment as well. The
well-known microbiologist Stanley Falkow once said that bacteria are “clever little devils” that can
become resistant to drugs they’ve never met and anticipate confrontations with other ones. In this way,