Magic Bullets, Lost Horizons: The Rise and Fall of Antibiotics

273 Pages·2001·4 MB·English

by  Sebastian G. B. Amyes

Magic Bullets, Lost Horizons

Magic Bullets, Lost Horizons
THE RISE AND FALL OF ANTIBIOTICS
Sebastian G.B. Amyes
Department of Medical Microbiology
University of Edinburgh
Edinburgh, UK
London and New York
First published 2001
by Taylor & Francis
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Taylor & Francis Inc,
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
Taylor & Francis is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2003.
© 2001 Taylor & Francis
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording,
or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
Every effort has been made to ensure that the advice and information
in this book is true and accurate at the time of going to press. However,
neither the publisher nor the authors can accept any legal responsibility
or liability for any errors or omissions that may be made. In the case of
drug administration, any medical procedure or the use of technical
equipment mentioned within this book, you are strongly advised to
consult the manufacturer’s guidelines.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
ISBN 0-203-30300-8 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-34645-9 (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN
0-415-27203-3 (hbk)
0-415-27204-1 (pbk)
To Rupert and Alix
“The application of antimicrobial chemotherapy would be the princi-
pal cause of a 10 year extension of life expectancy from birth. The
magnitude of that change may be taken from the fact that today the
elimination of all deaths from cancer would result in only a 2 year
extension of life expectancy from birth.”
William McDermott with David E. Rogers, “Social ramifications of control of
microbial disease”. The Johns Hopkins Medical Journal151: 302–313, 1982.
Contents
Acknowledgements ix
Chapter 1 Magic bullets 1
Chapter 2 That’s funny 23
Chapter 3 Development of modern antibiotics 53
Man’s mastery over infection
Chapter 4 Paradise Lost 81
The emergence of resistance
Chapter 5 Sharing knowledge 93
The spread of antibiotic resistance
Chapter 6 Identifying the enemy 125
The safety of antibiotics
Chapter 7 Intensive farming 147
The use of antibiotics in animals and the
consequences for man
Chapter 8 The doomsday scenario 171
Antibiotic resistance in the developing world
Chapter 9 Antibiotic resistance in modern healthcare
management 199
Why we shall lose the battle against infection
Chapter 10 The future of antibiotics 233
Has resistance switched out the light at the end
of the tunnel?
Index 255

Acknowledgements
I should like to thank all my colleagues who have allowed me to pick their
brains and engage in long hours of discussion. In particular, I thank Hilary-
Kay Young for both philosophical discussions about the use of antibiotics
and for some hard facts about the molecular biology of resistance mechan-
isms. I should also like to thank my research team; firstly for their excellent
research results, some of which are included here, and secondly for putting
up with absences while this book was being prepared.
I have tried to write a general book on antibiotics that covers both the
ethos of their use and the problems that we face. I have used innumerable
sources of information, including our university library, the Internet and
Public Databases. They are too numerous to list; however I would particu-
larly like to acknowledge the excellent book by Frank Ryan, “Tuberculosis –
the Greatest Story Never Told” for the wealth of information that it contained
on the historical development of antibiotics, which proved so useful in the
preparation of the first two chapters.