IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/endeec/v1y1996i03p349-355_00.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Resistance economics: social cost and the evolution of antibiotic resistance

Author

Listed:
  • Brown, Gardner
  • Layton, David F.

Abstract

Daily and Ehrlich have described the current state of our epidemiological environment in chilling detail. While their point is that human beings interact and affect the epidemiological environment in a variety of ways, the development of antibiotic resistance in bacteria strikes us as one aspect that we can begin to analyse immediately. The evolution of resistance to antibiotics is a function of their use by humans. The more we use, the more selective pressure is placed upon bacteria to develop resistance. This is further complicated by how they are used. Both the duration and the amounts used affect the change in the level of resistance. Finally, the primary feature driving the concern over the use of these drugs is that the evolution of resistance makes these ‘miracle’ drugs exhaustible. We can try to develop new and better antibiotics, but it is uncertain how successful we will be and how expensive they will be if we are successful.

Suggested Citation

  • Brown, Gardner & Layton, David F., 1996. "Resistance economics: social cost and the evolution of antibiotic resistance," Environment and Development Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 1(3), pages 349-355, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:endeec:v:1:y:1996:i:03:p:349-355_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S1355770X0000067X/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:endeec:v:1:y:1996:i:03:p:349-355_00. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/ede .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.