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 bacteria remained susceptible to other drugs and was eradicated. But the appearance of S. aureus not readily cleared by vancomycin foreshadows trouble. Worldwide, many strains of S. aureus are already resistant to all antibiotics except vancomycin. Emergence of forms lacking sensitivity …showed first 75 words of 3965 total…

…showed last 75 words of 3965 total…use--a perspective that concerns itself not only with curing bacterial disease at the moment but also with preserving microbial communities in the long run, so that bacteria susceptible to antibiotics will always be there to outcompete resistant strains. Similar enlightenment should influence the use of drugs to combat parasites, fungi and viruses. Now that consumption of those medicines has begun to rise dramatically, troubling resistance to these other microorganisms has begun to climb as well.