"Forget climate change - the antibiotics crisis will kill us all first", says NHS chief

Bugs that cannot be killed by antibiotics could wipe out humanity "before climate change does", England’s chief medical officer warned yesterday. Professor Dame Sally Davies said: "Antibiotics underpin modern medicine – you can’t have gut surgery, replacement hips, all sorts of surgery without risking infection. At least 10 million could die every year if we don’t get on top of this."

In her interview with Sky News Dame Sally said: "We humans are doing it to ourselves, but it could kill us before climate change does. It is a very important area and we are under-investing in sorting it out."

Apparently some strains of bugs including tuberculosis, MRSA and Clostridium difficile no longer respond to antibiotics that used to be effective against them.

Thank goodness for that I knew keithangel was in an environmental flap about nothing