Resistance as a Side Effect

We close Antibiotic Resistance by reiterating that we collectively created a resistance problem that cannot be easily corrected. A major flaw in our approach has been to treat antibiotics like other drugs, to assume that side effects are the main features to guard against rather than resistance. By ignoring pathogen evolution, we lost control over malaria and pneumonia caused by Acinetobacter; we may soon lose the battle with gonorrhea. Perhaps a way to move forward is to emphasize that resistance is a harmful side effect of antibiotic use when that use predisposes us to future resistance problems.