Could New Antibiotics Threaten Public Health?

The large range of antibiotics currently under development may pose a threat to public health by weakening the body's natural defenses against infection, according to an article by two biologists in the June 2003 issue of Microbiology.

The new antibiotics are attracting interest as a major new weapon in the campaign against bacterial infection, even though both experimental evidence and theoretical arguments suggest this may not be so, note the authors.

"It is claimed that bacteria will be unable to evolve resistance to them because they attack the ‘Achilles heel' of bacterial cell-wall structure,” explains Graham Bell, an evolutionary biologist at McGill University (Montreal, Canada). However, it this is true, "the introduction of these substances into general use may provoke the evolution of resistance to our defense proteins.” The article was co-authored by Pierre-Henri Gouyon, of the Ecologic Laboratory at the University of Paris (France).

Because the potential benefits of such antibiotics have been emphasized without drawing attention to the likelihood that resistance will evolve or to the consequences for human populations should that happen, the authors believe the development of this new category of antibiotics should be restrained "until the likely response of bacterial populations is more clearly understood.” They argue that the evolutionary consequences of new treatments involving the health of whole populations must be considered in the regulatory process.

If further investigation shows that bacteria will not build resistance to the new antibiotics, then the path will be clear for their introduction into wider circulation as a potentially valuable weapon against infectious disease. However, mathematical models already indicate that resistance is quite likely to spread, and therefore caution must be exercised until further research is conducted.




Related Links:
McGill University.