A recent report in The Week magazine warns that a post-antibiotic world is a possibility because bacteria are gaining resistance to antibiotics. "Before antibiotics were widely available, any accident, injury, or medical procedure that allowed pathogenic bacteria into the body was potentially deadly. One in nine skin infections was fatal. One in three cases of pneumonia led to death. Invasive surgeries including caesarean sections left the patient open to killer infections. Insect bites, burns, and blood transfusions frequently became a source of infection. So the discovery of the first antibiotic, penicillin, by Alexander Fleming in 1928 remains one of the high points in medical history. Antibiotics kill bacteria, which meant wounds were no longer death sentences. Yet when Fleming won the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1945, he warned of the dangers of antibiotic resistance. ... Fleming's prediction was right. ... Each new class of antibiotics since then has soon been greeted by resistant bacteria. ... The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently warned that drug-resistant bacteria kill at least 23,000 people annually in the U.S, and cost the health care system $20 billion per year" ("Why the post-antibiotic world is the real-life version of the zombie apocalypse," The Week, Nov. 26, 2013). This is an interesting report in light of Jesus' warning about the end times: "For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, AND PESTILENCES, and earthquakes, in divers places" (Matthew 24:7). (Friday Church News Notes, December 13, 2013, www.wayoflife.org, [email protected], 866-295-4143) Comments are closed.
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