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Report calls for action on antibiotic resistance

Kamran Abbasi, BMJ

Antibiotic resistance is a major threat to public health, needing wider recognition and a national strategy to combat it, says a report published this week by the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology.

Lord Soulsby, emeritus professor of animal pathology at Cambridge University and chairman of the subcommittee looking into antibiotic resistance, said: "Our inquiry has been an alarming experience. Misuse and overuse of antibiotics are now threatening to undo all their early promises and success in curing disease. But the greatest threat is complacency, from ministers, the medical professions, the veterinary service, the farming community, and the public at large."

The authors of the report, highlighting drug resistance in tuberculosis, meningitis, methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus, and malaria, conclude that all antimicrobial agents will eventually encounter resistant organisms, and we may face "the dire prospect of revisiting the pre-antibiotic era."

. . . [Full text of this article]

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