Resolving the Antibiotic Paradox

The title of this proceedings comes from the book The Antibiotic Paradox by Stuart B. Levy, referring to the paradox that the more antibiotics are used to treat infectious diseases, the less effective they become. When antibiotics were first introduced, they were considered wonder drugs because they were so effective. But with time bacteria have become resistant to nearly all antibiotics, and resistance is spreading faster than new antibiotics are being developed. This book identifies the issues concerning resistance, as well as describing efforts to develop new drugs that overcome the problem of resistance.