Penicillin used to be considered a miracle drug — but today, it just doesn’t have that same magic.
Evolution has been hard at work, and over time new bacteria have emerged that are resistant to the wonder drugs of the 20th century. But while the bugs have evolved, the drugs haven’t. There isn’t a lot of money to be made inventing new antibiotics, so the big drug companies aren’t investing in new cures. All this means that those new tough-to-treat infections which once stayed inside the hospital are now becoming widespread and popping up in prisons and schools.
Guests:
Todd Weber, Director, Office of Antimicrobial Resistance
for the National Center for Infectious Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Stuart Levy, Professor of Medicine and Molecular Biology at Tufts University and Co-founder of Paratek Pharmaceuticals.