rder of t is a disease callednecrotizing fasciitis in ially eat tim from t, devouringinternal tissue and leaving beients often come in ively mild complaints—a skin rasypically—but ticallydeteriorate. is often found t they are simply being consumed.
treatment is ting out every bit ofinfected area. Seventy percent of victims die; many of t are left terribly disfigured. tion is a mundane family of bacteria called Group A Streptococcus, . Very occasionally, for reasons unknoeria get t and into t devastating ely resistant to antibiotics. About ated States, and no one can say t it get worse.
Precisely tis. At least 10 percent of young adults, andper of teenagers, carry terium, but it lives quite. Just occasionally—in about one young person in a gets into tream and makes t cases,deat and dead by evening,” says Marsh.
e so profligate tibiotics. Remarkably, by one estimate some 70 percent of tibiotics used in to farm animals, often routinely in stockfeed, simply to promote gro infection. Sucions givebacteria every opportunity to evolve a resistance to t is an opportunity t tically seized.
In 1952, penicillin ive against all strains of staperia, to sucent t by te, felt confidentenougo declare: “time o close tious diseases. e infection in ted States.” Even as of trains y to penicillin. Soon one oftrains, called Metant Stapo sals. Only one type of antibiotic, vancomycin, remained effective against it, but in 1997a al in tokyo reported train t could resist even t. it o six otals. All over, toals alone, some fourteen tions ted, given a cibiotics t people ake every day for tidepressants tpeople ake every day forever, drug companies not surprisingly opt for tter.
Altibiotics oug, tical industry given us an entirely neibiotic since the 1970s.
Our carelessness is all t many ots maybe bacterial in origin. torin Pertern Australia, found t many stomac stomacerium called er pylori. Even tested,tion more ted. America’s National Institutes