regulation

An excellent paper and accompanying editorial in today's Canadian Medical Association Journal describes huge increases in fluoroquinolone antibiotic resistance in Ontario from 2002 to 2006. Similar changes have been described in many other parts of the world.

Fluoroquinolones have only been in existence since the 1980s and first licensed for sale in Canada in 1988. They were the first new class of antibiotic introduced for many years and were received with extreme expectations. They were widely touted as the solution to antibiotic resistance to penicillins, tetracyclines, sulfa antibiotics and others.