Scientists warned to limit antibiotic use

Scientists working on microbiology, genetic research and molecular biology projects need to be more careful regarding their antibiotic use to prevent resistance from becoming an increasingly prevalent issue.

This is the view of doctors at the University of East Anglia, who are warning that overuse of antibiotics could make them less effective in future, as experiments that use them carry the risk of releasing antibiotic-resistant bacteria into the environment.

Dr Laura Bowater of the university's Norwich Medical School commented: "The discovery of antibiotics was heralded as a magic bullet for modern medicine … but now antibiotic resistance is a catastrophic threat – and it threatens the achievements of modern medicine."

The fear is that if antibiotic-resistant bacteria from experiments is picked up by humans, it could lead to drugs they are prescribed in the future failing to fight off infections, which could pose significant dangers to public health and result in a situation similar to that before penicillin was discovered, when patients would die from minor illnesses.