There are reservations on this position. Penicillinase-producing Neisseria gonorrhoeae acquired a plasmid conferring ampicillin resistance at about the same time as that plasmid was first described in the respiratory pathogen Haemophilus influenzae . It may be reasonable to believe that a transfer occurred during a co-infection of the throat. It is possible that gonococci acquired this resistance during a rectal infection. Current sexual practices encourage infection not simply of the genitalia as acquisition of these resistances may illustrate.
Spectinomycin is used to treat certain gonococcal infections during pregnancy.
Treatment failure here has the potential to lead to neonatal infection with a resistant gonococcus. In the production of novel foods or the exploitation of novel processes, we open opportunities for microbial evolution that would not otherwise exist. The production of large numbers of crop plants increases enormously the biomass of resistance genes. We cannot predict what the effect of such amplification will be, but the situation is not dissimilar to the first use of antibiotics in clinical practice. Microbiologists did not foresee the problems of antibiotic resistance in the bacteria they were targeting.