A recent article by the BBC
outlined that a
“terrible future
could be on the
horizon4” and
this along with
warnings from
the World Health
Organization
and The US centres of disease
control, states
there will be an
emergence of
“nightmare bacteria”
and an “apocalypse”
of disease. The antibiotics we use every
day are so valuable to
life, scientists question
what we will do without them.
From
the
tinniest
scratch, to open surgery, these operations
will be increasingly
risky. It seems a grave
future for the development of antibiotic progression lies ahead;
the brilliance that was
nineteenth century scientific bacterial discov-
In 1928 Alexander Fleming (1881–1955) discovered
penicillin, made from the Penicillium notatum mold.
eries has simmered to
an end and, whether
the technology needed
to discover new antibiotics is simply too
advanced or there is
no existing new strains
of antibiotic to discover
is debatable.
Developing antibiotics poses problems both commercially and
economically: Dr Brad
Spellberg, one of the
authors of the 2004
17
IDSA report Bad Bugs,
No Drugs expresses:
“Antibiotics, in particular, have a poor return
on investment because
they are taken for a
short period of time
and cure their target disease. In contrast, drugs that treat
chronic illness, such as
high blood pressure,
are taken daily for
the rest of a patient’s
life. “Companies have