How superbugs will affect our health care costs

[Guest guest]

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/06/how-superbugs-will-affect-ou\

r-health-care-costs/240454/

The 'return of our old enemies in an untreatable form'

Original Reporting | By Kroh |

June 13, 2011 — Before the widespread use of antibiotics, infectious diseases

were a major cause of illness and death. Thanks to the drugs, many of those

diseases have been brought under control since the 1950s. But the misuse of

antibiotics in humans and animals has yielded bacteria that are increasingly

antibiotic resistant, and, as reported last week, the agriculture industry in

the United States has remained firmly regulation-resistant in the face of calls

to reduce or eliminate the non-therapeutic use of antibiotics in animals (for

example, antibiotics used for promoting growth).

If the current trend continues, it appears that we are on the threshold of an

era in which now-treatable infectious diseases re-emerge as frequent life

disrupters, and, ultimately, as major killers...

http://www.remappingdebate.org/article/return-our-old-enemies-untreatable-form