what makes this a particularly unique time in antibiotic resistance is that the pace of development of resistance is really outstripping the development of new drugs. in the past we knew there were new drugs coming on the market -- every year we had something new. now we've reached a situation where that's not the case year to year. for some [germs] that we see a resistance to in hospitals there's nothing coming anytime soon. we're facing a situation now where people are talking about the unavailability of antibiotics to treat common infections.
is antibiotic resistance unique to our era?