Drop the antibiotics, we need a new battle plan against bacteria

For 80 years antibiotics have helped us to fight disease. But bacteria are growing resistant – so it's time we stopped treating winter colds with such a powerful weaponSo it's that time of year again. Just about everyone I know has a cough, a cold, a sniffle, a sore throat. We're suffering from a general outbreak of snot, a seasonal plague of phlegm that descends on us with tedious predictability and makes us feel as cold and damp inside as it is outside.But it's the 21st century! Surely we should be able to come up with a cure for this misery?Pharmaceutical companies' balance sheets must be benefiting from cough and cold remedies (which merely offer limited relief from symptoms) – couldn't they divert some funds into finding a real cure? There would be millions of punters lining up to buy such a drug. But much as we might all like a cure for the common cold, there's a much more worrying problem looming when it comes to infections and our ability to fight them off.Microbiologists have likened this impending crisis in healthcare to climate change – it's big, scary, and we're not doing much about it. The crisis? We're running out of antibiotics, and quickly.In the battle against bacteria, antibiotics have been formidable weapons. We've been using them widely for only 80 years, but in that time they have helped to transform our lives: we now expect our children to survive into adulthood, we expect to live to a ripe old age. The trouble is, antibiotics don't last for ever, ...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Comment GPs Infectious diseases Pharmaceuticals industry Health Medical research Microbiology Society Drugs Features Antibiotics The Observer Business Agriculture Science Source Type: news