This article, like much of the debate about antibiotic resistance, is fatally flawed by its anthropocentric viewpoint. The thing to understand about antibiotic

This article, like much of the debate about antibiotic resistance, is fatally flawed by its anthropocentric viewpoint. The thing to understand about antibiotic resistance is that we humans are but foot soldiers in a global war that has been raging for literally billions of years! Plants killing bacteria, bacteria killing fungi, viruses killing bacteria, bacteria killing viruses, even bacteria killing other bacteria; this conflict rages on with or without our input constantly. Almost all of our current antibiotics are natural products or derivatives thereof, taken from the plants and fungi that have been fighting off bacteria much longer than we have. Increasingly, we're finding that the antibiotic resistance that arrises in human pathogenic bacteria is not the result of novel mutations (as this article suggests), but rather the adoption of a pre-existing resistance trait from one species that has nothing to do with humans into one that does. In a teaspoon of dirt there are more different species of bacteria than have ever caused diseases in humans, all of which are in a constant struggle for survival, many of which have developed highly specialized weapons and defenses with which to fight this war. We've been fighting bacteria with antibiotics for just about 100 years, and we're already losing! The idea that management of distribution or development of novel agents will be sufficient to prevent bacterial infections into the indefinite future is laughable on its face for any semi-serious student of evolution. No, antibiotics have won us an important battle, but the war is far from over. New antibiotics will help, but each new one will hold off fewer infections, with more serious side-effects, lasting ever less time before resistance takes over. We'll never see the sort of success with antibiotics in the future that we have in the past. Interesting alternatives, like bacteriophage therapy, stool transplants, and other means of grooming our natural bacterial flora will go a bit further. Ultimately, though, the incontrovertible truth of nature is this: the only lasting alternative to conflict is cooperation (a.k.a. symbiosis). Fortunately, for reasons we still don't fully understand, organisms in conflict naturally evolve to a cooperative state...given enough time. Unfortunately, evolution is very slow, and there is no rule stating that there won't be casualties (i.e. extinctions) along the way. So, as uncomfortable as it may be to many, there really is only one long-term hope that humanity has for permanently stemming the tide of infectious agents in less than an average lifespan's time: genetic engineering. Luckily, we are developing new tools for this all the time. Yes, they pose great danger, but so did fire the first time humanity harnessed it to provide warmth and a way to cook food (coincidentally enough, yet another of our small victories in the war against disease).