I take daily antibiotics for acne (doxycycline), and have done so for years. How much harm am I actually doing by increasing antibiotic resistance?
This is not my area of epidemiology, so take this with a grain of salt, but my best guess is that the impact is negligible, for the following reasons
(1) Mutations that confer resistance are specific for classes of antibiotics. A mutation that provides resistance to Doxycycline will not help the bug against Penicillins.
(2) If I understand correctly, the reason tetracyclines are approved for acne is that they are no longer the first line choice for empirical treatment of any serious infections. This is because tetracycline resistance is already widespread....
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