Toxicology Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words - 1

Toxicology - Essay Example This exploration is being undertaken too in relation to the general toxicology of antibiotics and the dynamics of antibiotic resistance leading to human and environmental harms. Antibiotics in general have been in wide use to treat many infections, but of late have been the subject of a growing body of literature on the toxicological aspects of antibiotics, not only with regard to the toxic side effects of certain antibiotics on humans, but with regard to the growing proliferation of antibiotic waste in the environment, leading to increased levels of antibiotics in water bodies and soils. These in turn lead to adverse effects on the ecological balance of the environment, with organisms either dying or developing resistance to the antibiotics, radically changing the makeup of the environmental biomes. The adverse effects on the environment ultimately boomerang back to human beings, who suffer from the toxic effects of the antibiotics themselves, or else suffer from the environmental b acklash from the proliferation of antibiotic-resistant organisms that cause new diseases and environmental problems (Klint 2012; Turner 2014; Ebert et al. 2011). Recent literature on fluoroquinolones reflects this reality, with more recent findings showing that fluoroquinolones cause long term damage to various aspects of human health, including antibiotic resistance, tendinitis, rupture of the tendons, and serious and sometimes irreversible neurological and cognitive damage, and damage to the eyes due to possible detachment of the retina, among those who take fluoroquinolones for varying lengths of time. The problem too, with fluoroquinolones, is that adverse side effects tied to neurological damage have been identified but not deemed as significant for a large portion of the population as early as the turn of the new century, and that literature on the greater risk for tendinitis and rupture of the tendons among those taking fluoroquinolones has been available since at least 2008