{"id":207912,"date":"2025-03-06T05:11:06","date_gmt":"2025-03-06T11:11:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/03\/scientists-sound-alarm-safe-antibiotic-has-led-to-an-almost-untreatable-superbug"},"modified":"2025-03-06T05:11:06","modified_gmt":"2025-03-06T11:11:06","slug":"scientists-sound-alarm-safe-antibiotic-has-led-to-an-almost-untreatable-superbug","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/03\/scientists-sound-alarm-safe-antibiotic-has-led-to-an-almost-untreatable-superbug","title":{"rendered":"Scientists Sound Alarm: \u201cSafe\u201d Antibiotic Has Led to an Almost Untreatable Superbug"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/scientists-sound-alarm-safe-antibiotic-has-led-to-an-almost-untreatable-superbug2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>An international team of researchers has discovered that rifaximin, a commonly prescribed antibiotic for liver disease patients, is contributing to the global rise of a highly resistant strain of vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium (VRE). This superbug, which frequently causes severe infections in hospitalized patients, is becoming increasingly difficult to treat.<\/p>\n<p>The study, published in <em><i>Nature<\/i><\/em>, reveals that rifaximin use is accelerating resistance to daptomycin\u2014one of the last remaining effective antibiotics against VRE infections.<\/p>\n<p>Led by scientists from the <a href=\"https:\/\/scitechdaily.com\/tag\/university-of-melbourne\/\">University of Melbourne\u2019s Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity (Doherty Institute)<\/a> and Austin Health, the research underscores the urgent need for a more comprehensive understanding of the unintended consequences of antibiotic use. It highlights the critical importance of responsible antibiotic prescribing to mitigate the spread of antimicrobial resistance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An international team of researchers has discovered that rifaximin, a commonly prescribed antibiotic for liver disease patients, is contributing to the global rise of a highly resistant strain of vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium (VRE). This superbug, which frequently causes severe infections in hospitalized patients, is becoming increasingly difficult to treat. The study, published in Nature, reveals [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1495],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-207912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207912\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}