25% of Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria Can Spread Resistance Directly to Other Microbes

There is a debate about whether antibiotics influence the rate at which bacteria acquire drug resistance, with some researchers showing that exposure to antibiotics increases the spread of antibiotic resistance through a bacterial population. But work from scientists at Duke University suggests that genes that confer antibiotic resistance are not shared more frequently when antibiotics are present. Their work has also shown that at least 25 percent of antibiotic-resistant bacterial pathogens can spread their resistance genes directly to other bacteria.