“Deploying an antibiotic is not a benign act,” says Gautam Dantas, a microbial genomics researcher at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri. The drugs often cause “collateral damage”, he explains, disrupting microbial ecosystems in ways that can have long-lasting health effects.
they do not discriminate between harmful and beneficial microbes. Gut microbial communities are often knocked off-kilter, and it can take months for them to fully recover. Until they do, people are more vulnerable to opportunistic infections and to a range of immune, metabolic and cognitive complications.
