So, like, picture this: back in the day, people didn’t really know that tiny germs could make you sick. It wasn’t until some smart folks put the pieces together that we realized how these little buggers could wreak havoc on our bodies. Thomas Levenson, who’s all about science writing at MIT, talks about this journey in his new book “So Very Small,” where he dives into the history of germ theory and how it’s still relevant today.
Back in 1945, after World War II ended, the Nobel Prize committees were all abuzz trying to figure out who to give the awards to. Finally, on October 25, they sent telegrams to Sir Alexander Fleming for discovering penicillin, and to Howard Florey and Ernst Chain for turning that mold juice into a lifesaving medicine. Fast forward to the Nobel Prize ceremony on December 10, where Fleming, Florey, and Chain are all partying it up, with Fleming even staying out until three a.m. despite his usual buttoned-up demeanor.
The next day, the three Nobel laureates give their speeches. Fleming, in his usual style, starts off talking about how he stumbled upon penicillin. But then, out of nowhere, he goes all preachy on everyone, warning about the dangers of underdosing with antibiotics. He’s like, “Yo, if you’re gonna use penicillin, use enough of it so you don’t create superbugs that can resist it.” And guess what? His warning wasn’t just some made-up story. Resistant strains of gonorrhea and staphylococcus were already making their debut in the medical world by then.
Despite Fleming’s cautionary tale, the rise of antibiotic-resistant superbugs has been a constant battle ever since. Just when we think we’ve found a wonder drug to fight off infections, those pesky microbes find a way to outsmart us. Methicillin, hailed as a game-changer in the fight against staph infections, quickly lost its effectiveness after resistant strains emerged in the early 1960s. And from there, it’s been a never-ending cycle of bugs developing resistance to one antibiotic after another.
In 2019 alone, nearly 3 million antibiotic-resistant infections were reported in the US, leading to the deaths of 35,000 people. It’s like we’re in a losing battle against these tiny but mighty foes. And to make matters worse, superbugs that resist all available drugs are no longer just a nightmare scenario; they’re a harsh reality claiming lives as we speak.
Take the case of a woman who traveled across the Indian subcontinent, only to return to the US with a femur fracture and a deadly infection caused by Klebsiella pneumoniae. Doctors tried all fourteen antibiotics available in Reno, but none of them worked against the superbug that had taken hold of her. Within weeks, she succumbed to the infection, leaving everyone wondering how we got to this point.
So, like, it’s pretty clear that we’ve underestimated the power of these tiny germs and their ability to outsmart our best medicines. The future that Sir Alexander Fleming warned about is already here, with superbugs claiming lives and proving that we still have a lot to learn about fighting infectious diseases. Maybe it’s just me, but it seems like we’re in for a long and tough battle ahead.
