E coli becomes drug resistant in just two weeks

After a low dose of antibiotics for just two week, researchers detected a drastic rise in the number of E coli in the gut and those bacteria showed a large resistance to antibiotics. "We wouldn't have been surprised that bacteria shift populations or that resistance genes changed," said Thad Stanton, a microbiologist at the USDA Agricultural Research Service's National Animal Disease Centre in Ames, Iowa.

"We were a little surprised by how much E coli populations went up in the medicated group. We were so surprised that we did a repeat experiment in culture. The number went up from 20 to 100-fold, that's a big change." Read more ...