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antibiotic |
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antibioticDrug that kills or inhibits the growth of bacteria and fungi. The earliest antibiotics, the penicillins, came into use from 1941 and were quickly joined by chloramphenicol, the cephalosporins, erythromycins, tetracyclines, and aminoglycosides. A range of broad-spectrum antibiotics, the 4-quinolones, was developed in 1989, of which ciprofloxacin was the first. Each class and individual antibiotic acts in a different way and may be effective against either a broad spectrum or a specific type of disease-causing agent. Use of antibiotics has become more selective as side effects, such as toxicity, allergy, and resistance, have become better understood. Bacteria have the ability to develop resistance following repeated or subclinical (insufficient) doses, so more advanced antibiotics and synthetic antimicrobials are continually required to overcome them.
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He said that FDA's objective is to keep the germs vulnerable to enrofloxacin and other antibiotics in the class known as fluoroquinolones. is selected for creative and strategic input into the marketing of Canada's first registered fluoroquinolone for food-producing animals, Baytril[R] 100 (enrofloxacin). A rapidly increasing proportion of gonorrhea cases among men who have sex with men are resistant to a class of antibiotics commonly used to treat gonococcal infection, prompting the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to recommend that these drugs, fluoroquinolones, no longer be given as first-line treatment for this population. |
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