Maryn McKenna on the Post-Antibiotic Age
We're accustomed to hearing our era referred to as the Space Age, the Information Age or the Digital Age. It could just as easily be called the Antibiotic Age. Very few advances in the 20th Century so utterly changed life - and improved our quality of life - the way Sir Alexander Fleming's discovery of penicillin did in 1928.By the...
We're accustomed to hearing our era referred to as the Space Age, the Information Age or the Digital Age. It could just as easily be called the Antibiotic Age.
Very few advances in the 20th Century so utterly changed life - and improved our quality of life - the way Sir Alexander Fleming's discovery of penicillin did in 1928.
By the mid-1940s, the lives of countless wounded soldiers were being saved by penicillin and it became known as the miracle drug of the Second World War.
Antibiotics revolutionized medicine and the world. Bacterial infections, from gonorrhea to pneumonia, could be treated swiftly. An infected cut on a finger was no longer life-threatening. A host of medical treatments and surgeries became possible. Life became a little less anxious.
Very few advances in the 20th Century so utterly changed life - and improved our quality of life - the way Sir Alexander Fleming's discovery of penicillin did in 1928.
By the mid-1940s, the lives of countless wounded soldiers were being saved by penicillin and it became known as the miracle drug of the Second World War.
Antibiotics revolutionized medicine and the world. Bacterial infections, from gonorrhea to pneumonia, could be treated swiftly. An infected cut on a finger was no longer life-threatening. A host of medical treatments and surgeries became possible. Life became a little less anxious.
But now things are becoming a little more anxious because bacteria have developed resistance to so many antibiotics.
Antibiotic-resistant superbugs like MRSA, C. difficile and CRE lurk in hospital rooms and kill patients who have undergone medical procedures that would have otherwise saved or improved their lives.
In fact, a lot of medical and public health experts now fear that we're on the cusp of an unsettling new age...the Post-Antibiotic Age.
Maryn McKenna is an award-winning science journalist who specializes in public health issues. She's a columnist for The Scientific American, and her books include Superbug: The Fatal Menace of MRSA, as well as an upcoming book about the connection between antibiotics and agriculture. She's also the author of a new article called "Imagining the Post-Antibiotics Future" for the online magazine, Medium.com.
Antibiotic-resistant superbugs like MRSA, C. difficile and CRE lurk in hospital rooms and kill patients who have undergone medical procedures that would have otherwise saved or improved their lives.
In fact, a lot of medical and public health experts now fear that we're on the cusp of an unsettling new age...the Post-Antibiotic Age.
Maryn McKenna is an award-winning science journalist who specializes in public health issues. She's a columnist for The Scientific American, and her books include Superbug: The Fatal Menace of MRSA, as well as an upcoming book about the connection between antibiotics and agriculture. She's also the author of a new article called "Imagining the Post-Antibiotics Future" for the online magazine, Medium.com.