Mutations do not explain drug-resistant bacteria. Scientists discovered that bacteria were resistant to certain antibiotics even before the antibiotics were invented.
Well now you're just making stuff up. Bacterial mutations causing drug resistance has been demonstrated time and time again. The possibility of such mutations is why doctors carefully instruct patients to take
*all* their medication, the full course of it, not just part of it, because otherwise the body ends up providing an antagonistic but not sufficiently fatal bacterial environment that permits the growth of mutated bacterial colonies. This is very clearly described here in this excerpt from
Evolution of drug-resistant tuberculosis: A tale of two species:
How has this resistance evolved? In most instances it occurs because patients either cryptically discontinue one or more of their multiple drugs or take less than the prescribed dosage (12). Alternatively, physicians -- who have become generally less familiar with tuberculosis as the incidence has diminished -- prescribe inappropriately (13). In either scenario, insufficient numbers or dosages of drugs are administered, creating an environment that selects for survival of the drug-resistant mutants. Note that the drugs do not induce the mutations, only tip the balance in favor of the naturally derived variants.
Here's a link to a table of the specific tuberculosis mutations and the drugs they cause resistance to:
Summary of the molecular mechanisms of antituberculosis drug resistance
--Percy
Edited by Percy, : Spelling.
™ Version 4.2
