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Jan 13, 2011

More people die from antibiotic resistant bacteria than AIDS, car accidents & prostate cancer combined.

Dan Rather, a 22-year-old Marine Corps recruit. Dan Rather - "Crisis" is not too strong a word for describing what has happened to antibiotics. As our use of the drugs rises every year in the United States, bacterial resistance has risen right alongside it: there isn't a single known antibiotic to which bacteria have not become resistant.

Every year, more than ninety thousand Americans die from infections that have become resistant to antibiotics. That stunning figure is higher than the death toll from AIDS, car accidents and prostate cancer combined.

Seven decades since the discovery of antibiotics, it's clear that science still cannot keep pace with bacteria. Dr. Stuart Levy, a professor of molecular biology at the Tufts School of Medicine and one of the world's leading medical authorities on antibiotics, says the cause of the crisis is not in dispute: we are simply using too many antibiotics.

Please read more by Dan Rather


Cool photo of Dan Rather as 22 year old Marine from achievement.org