Antibiotic Resistance 2

Part I of Essay
During 1997, an event doctors had been fearing finally occurred. In three geographically separate patients, an often deadly bacterium, Staphylococcus aureus, responded poorly to a once reliable antidote--the antibiotic vancomycin. Fortunately, in those patients, the bacteri ....

Part II of Essay
.... as miracle drugs -- magic bullets able to eliminate bacteria without doing much harm to the cells of treated individuals. Yet with each passing decade, bacteria that defy not only single but multiple antibiotics -- and therefore are extremely difficult to control -- have become increasingly common. What is more, strains of at least three bacterial species capable of causing life-threatening illnesses (Enterococcus faecalis, Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Pseudomonas aeruginosa) already evade every antibiotic in the clinician's stockpile of m ....