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by ta_donk_gt 3680 days ago
> because they don't want to address the science.

Do you have any scientific evidence to back up your theory? Or, said another way, where is this science you speak of documented and tested?

As far as evidence against your theory, evolution (e.g. bacteria becoming resistant to antibiotics) is the result of mutation and selective pressure. If antibiotics are never used, then there is no selective pressure. Significant percentages of a bacterial species do not just decide to become immune to some antibiotic that doesn't exist or is never used.

When the selective pressure of an antibiotic is present, however, those mutations that provide immunity to the antibiotic are selected (as the others die) and become a larger percentage of the total population of the species.

This is also why you take the full dosage of an antibiotic. Otherwise, you leave the most resistant alive (those more vulnerable to the antibiotic die first, in theory).

Also why farms are considered to be the leading cause of antibiotic resistance. By constantly administering antibiotics when they are not needed, you are providing a constant selective pressure, forcing adaptation to occur.

1 comments

The science tells us another thing, too: because the mutations that provide the antibiotic resistance tend to reduce fitness in other ways (there's always a tradeoff), in the absence of the antibiotic in the environment the non-resistant strains will tend to become dominant again.