In their opinion piece, “‘Superbug’ Threat,” in today’s Washington Post, Ramanan Laxminarayan and Mark Plotkin draw attention to the growing danger of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Another one to file under “Threats: Self-Inflicted.”

Every day in the United States, 100 men, women and children — 40,000 or more every year — die from infections caused by bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics.

…

Why are our miracle drugs failing us? One reason — well documented — is that we have used them too often, to treat infections and conditions that more often than not could be defeated by the body’s immune system without medical intervention. Another reason is that antibiotics have become omnipresent, in our food and water supply, as farmers feed them to cattle and poultry and spray them on crops. As we ingest them in low doses, bacteria become familiar with them and mutate to protect themselves.

Obviously bacteria don’t mutate to protect themselves, but the ones with mutations that enable them to survive find a wide-open field where they don’t have to compete with bacteria that don’t survive. Some of these can kill, and our obsession with sanitation may be our undoing. Contributing to the threat is the prevalence of high-speed travel, leading to a quicker, more far-flung epidemic, as seen with the spread of SARS from China to other countries and continents.

However, it’s unlikely that the human race will be wiped out. Some of us will survive, presumably hardier and hopefully wiser. Nonetheless, I’d hate to be among the ones who have to bury the dead.