LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Antibiotic: Antibiotic Resistance
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When a Staph infection requires treatment, doctors usually turn to an antibiotic derived from penicillin called methicillin. Methicillin was specifically designed in 1959 to kill the Staph bacteria. However, within two years, a few strains of Staph developed resistance to this new antibiotic. This strain was termed "methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus" and the acronym MRSA was born.
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The evolution of antibiotic resistant bacteria is a critical issue for human health. When bacteria become resistant to an antibiotic, the antibiotic will no longer kill the bacteria, and ... no longer able to prevent the human disease caused by the bacteria. Many scientists have become increasingly alarmed by the growing number of bacterial strains that are resistant to multiple antibiotics, making the treatment of some diseases very difficult. Widespread antibiotic resistance is caused by the overuse (and misuse) of antibiotics.
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Augmentin combines amoxicillin, an extended-spectrum antibiotic, with clavulanate, which inhibits an important mechanism of bacterial resistance. That mechanism is the production of beta-lactamases -- enzymes that destroy many antibiotics in both the penicillin and cephalosporin classes. By binding irreversibly to beta-lactamases, clavulanate protects amoxicillin from destruction.
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Vaccines do not suffer the problem of resistance because a vaccine enhances the body's natural defenses, while an antibiotic operates separately from the body's normal defenses. Nevertheless, new strains may evolve that escape immunity induced by vaccines.
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[B]efore the ban 60 to 80 per cent of Enterococcus bacteria sampled from livestock were resistant to antibiotic growth promoters. That is now five to 35 per cent. The panel says this has "dramatically reduced" the reservoir of genes that confer resistance to several clinically important human antibiotics.
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The antibiotic vancomycin is very good in treating methicillin-resistant staph infections. "But we're very worried that if we use it a lot, we'll start seeing resistance to it," says researcher Gloria P. Heresi, MD, professor of pediatric infectious diseases at The University of Texas Medical School in Houston, in the news release.
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Antibiotic Resistance