Photo: Francisco Bengoa via Flickr

PHOENIX – To picture a future in which antibiotics no longer work, all we have to do is look at the past – at the United States before the 1940s when simple infections accounted for a third of all deaths.

“When an antibiotic resistance develops anywhere, it’s a threat to people everywhere,” said Elizabeth Jungman, director of The Pew Charitable Trusts’ public health programs, speaking at a panel on Friday at Health Journalism 2018 that painted a chilling but prescient view of what could happen if and when antibiotics stop working, and we don’t have enough new drugs in the pipeline. “We know what a post-antibiotic world could look like because we lived in a pre-antibiotic world.” Continue reading →