how does not finishing a course of antibiotics cause antibiotic resistance?
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This notion is actually being challenged I think, but the thinking was that in an infection you would have millions and millions of bacteria. It’s likely that within this population, some bacteria will be less likely to be killed as quickly. Carrying on the course would still stress them an eventually work or enable your immune system to clear the infection. If you stop, these few bacteria that are less susceptible grow and replace the original population, or go on to spread elsewhere. Repeat this cycle and incrementally you get more and more resistant bacteria.
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