We can’t say we weren’t warned. More than 75 years ago, bacteriologist Rene Dubos cautioned that misuse of antibiotics could breed drug-resistant bacteria – and he has been proved prescient. In this episode: the rise of superbugs, why we ignored the warnings about them, how some are enlisting an old therapy to fight back, and whether we’ll heed history’s lessons in the face of a future pandemic. Plus, a weird unforeseen effect of antibiotics being investigated at the Body Farm.
Guests:
Fred Turek - Director of the Center for Sleep and Circadian Biology, Department of Neurobology, Northwestern University
Jennifer DeBruyn - Microbiologist at the University of Tennessee, who also works at the Anthropology Research Facility, a.k.a. the Body Farm
Steffanie Strathdee - Associate Dean of Global Health Sciences at the University of California, San Diego, and co-author (with Tom Patterson) of “The Perfect Predator: A Scientist’s Race to Save Her Husband from a Deadly Superbug”
Tom Patterson - Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego, and co-author (with Steffanie Strathdee) of “The Perfect Predator: A Scientist’s Race to Save Her Husband from a Deadly Superbug”
Mark Honigsbaum - Medical Historian, journalist, and lecturer at City University, London, and author of “The Pandemic Century: One Hundred Years of Panic, Hysteria, and Hubris”
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Battling Bacteria | Big Picture Science podcast - Listen or read transcript on Metacast
