Every time I get sick and it’s not just a fever or a cold, I always want to go to the doctor and get medicine. Throughout my life, my mom has always been reluctant to bring me, and for good reason. During this week’s Rose Café, I learned about the history of antibiotics and how resistance to them cannot be stopped, only slowed down. How? By not taking antibiotics (unless super necessary).

I found the talk to be very informative in terms of the history of antibiotics. It was interesting to learn that about compound 606, which was a synthetic drug used to treat syphilis. However, the drug is an arsenic compound and therefore toxic to humans. Later, penicillin, the first true antibiotic, supplemented it. Because the speaker is a chemical engineer, it was also fascinating how engineers play a role in antibiotics. In terms of antibiotic resistance, I felt like I always knew that resistance existed but I wasn’t sure why. I learned that it has only become a huge topic now because back then, antibiotics were being discovered at a quicker rate than the rate of resistance to the drugs. Nowadays, there isn’t much new discovery of new antibiotics so there has been signs of greater resistance.

I agree with the statement that we shouldn’t over sanitize – germs and bacteria are all around us and not all of it is harmful. I think if we always sterilize things, our body won’t have any defense against even small amounts of bacteria. Instead, we should be exposed to different types of bacteria in small amounts to grow an immunity to them. Our immune systems are strong at our young ages so we should be wary about taking antibiotics. Most of the time, we probably don’t need them.