Word: vancomycins
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...more of the drugs used to treat them is growing ever longer, and in a number of cases physicians are running out of options. In U.S. hospitals, more than 20% of all enterococcus infections, which include infections of the gastrointestinal tract, heart valve and blood, are now resistant to vancomycin, for many years the antibiotic of last resort. Even more worrisome, insensitivity to vancomycin--which nurses and physicians in intensive-care units refer to as the big gun--is showing up in the dangerous family of staphylococcus bacteria...
SUPER DRUG The FDA has okayed Zyvox, the first entirely new type of antibiotic in 35 years. With microbes becoming ever more resistant to antibiotics--including the drug of last resort, vancomycin--the FDA's nod comes just in time: Zyvox is approved for staph bacteria, pneumonia and other serious infections. Now if only docs won't overprescribe it, lest the bugs develop resistance to it as well...
...half of all hospital-acquired staph infections were resistant to the most common types of antibiotics. So what can doctors do? For starters, they can stop prescribing so many antibiotics - it only accelerates the development of supergerms. Already, hospitals are trying to hold back on the use of vancomycin, the last antibiotic silver bullet left in the chamber...
Aditi Bagchi `99 says she learned all about this in Science B-55, "Evolutionary Biology." "The history of staphylococcus aureus demonstrates the need for cooperation between the medical and pharmaceutical industries, and the agricultural industries," she says. "Vancomycin is used in huge amounts in animals abroad. Therefore, it's not enough to regulate its use in the medical industry but in the agricultural one as well...
Despite the danger of antibiotics, however, few patients have heeded the warnings. When penicillin came out, it was hailed as the savior for staphylococcus aureus patients, and afflicted individuals today would like to believe the same about vancomycin...