World on cusp of 'post-antibiotic era'
&quot;Bacteria becoming completely resistant to treatment - also known as the antibiotic apocalypse - could plunge medicine back into the dark ages.&quot;<p>Probably not, for a number of reasons. The arms-race strategy of antibiotics vs drug resistance was doomed to fail from the start, as many know. The solution is counter intuitive: stop the arms race of stronger and stronger antibiotics completely, and the bacterial resistance to weaker antibiotics will be reduced over time. It&#x27;s expensive for bacteria to keep antimicrobial genes around, and once the selective pressure of an antibiotic environment decreases, they&#x27;ll lose the traits that confer resistance. It may even be possible to phase out one drug resistance trait at a time in multiple-drug-resistant populations. The horizontal gene transfer that the article mentions is really cool, but ultimately a non-sequitor when it comes to population-level infection control.<p>This solution means temporarily accepting uncontrolled drug-resistant bacteria in some narrow cases, which is unpalatable, but this strat works in the petri dish.