Bionic Bacteria by Margaret Keenan New Generations of pathogens, sometimes called superbugs, are creating quite a stir. And no wonder. The antibiotics traditionally used against them have lost their punch, and medical experts say the situation is serious. You may have had something to do with it. If the answer to any of these questions is yes, you have contributed to a growing, worldwide problem - bacteria that have become resistant to antibiotics.
Physicians are also to blame.
Their sins include overprescribing the drugs, using a wide-spectrum therapy when a more directed drug would be better, and improper use of them as prophylactics. None of these germs has a single brain cell, so they aren't technically outwitting us. They are simply behaving in Darwinian fashion, adapting in order to survive. And unlike mutations that may take hundreds of years to evolve in animal species, these are happening much more quickly. Each time, there is the possibility that the germ's DNA may undergo an alteration that will produce a new strain, one that is able to foil the antibiotic directed against it.