Antibiotics: Officially Encouraged, Increasingly Precise, Still Risky

It's official: fighting antibiotic-resistant bacteria is now a national security priority for the US. On September 18, 2014, President Barack Obama issued an executive order requiring the National Security Council to develop and implement federal policies for combating antibiotic-resistant bacteria (CARB). Under the order, the Council must collaborate with at least a dozen other agencies including the Departments of Defense, Justice, Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, and Homeland Security. A task force representing all the collaborators will present a five-year strategic action plan by February 15, 2015.

The president's order comes none too soon, as statistics reveal. The Centers for Disease Control & Prevention estimates that two million Americans acquire serious infections caused by antibiotic-resistant bacteria each year, and 23,000 people die as a direct result of these infections. The prevalence is high enough that 63% of infectious disease doctors have treated patients with infections that did not respond to any antibiotics