[bvw]

Do you agree with the article's analysis of the drugs, mutations and effects of the mutations of the set they did study? Or to be more limiting a question, do you feel that the analysis of the studied set was scientific?

Why would it be *impossible* to overlook the cases in post 12?

Regardless of your opinion as to motive, what does their analysis of bacterial development of antibiotic resistance show -- if you had to rewrite the summary?

[ahayes]

It's probably all right as far as it goes (after looking for beta-lactamases, MRSA, and vancomycin resistance and not finding them I didn't read it thoroughly). However when the author's premise is that antibiotic resistance comes about only through mutation and loss of function of existing genes or swapping about of preexisting plasmids and they completely ignore major examples of evolutionary innovation that contradicts this premise. . . I'd say that blows the whole thing out of the water.

It would be impossible to ignore MRSA and vancomycin resistance in a study of antibiotic resistance because these are the two antibiotic resistances of major clinical significance today. MRSA renders a wide range of antibiotics ineffective and is commonly transmitted in hospital settings. My grandmother had MRSA cellulitis, which was successfully treated with vancomycin, which is essentially the last line of defense. Now we have vancomycin resistance passing around. Even worse, some vancomycin resistant MRSA strains have been found. At that point you just throw up your hands and hope for good luck, because there's nothing medicine can do.

So you're telling me in their exhaustive research they came across the resistance method for chloramphenicol, which has never had any major clinical use, and somehow overlooked the two most medically significant resistances?? I've read too many of these articles; I'm not feeling that credulous anymore.

Here's a good article discussing the danger of these infections. You'll notice they mention mecA. That is the novel gene I mentioned in my earlier post that came about by the combination of a staph gene with a gene from E. coli.