Professor Devi Sridhar: a masterclass in the antibiotics crisis

If antibiotics stop working it will be the end of modern medicine as we know it. That is the essence of this article by the redoubtable Professor Devi Sridhar of Edinburgh University. We’ve channelled her before on this blog (LSS 24 8 24; 26 1023). UK readers will recall her many appearances on TV during the COVID 19 pandemic. Her cool, calm reason was a welcome antidote to the wild hysteria, baseless conspiracy mongering and shameful ignorance of that epoch.

Her article is a reprise of the main points we and other campaigners have been making for years. Over-prescription; lack of research; widespread public ignorance. The tireless Professor Sally Davies is name-checked. Of course: for she has done so much to proclaim this pressing danger. But the real problem for Devi is widespread abuse of antibiotics in farming industries. To produce short term higher yields in livestock such as cattle and pigs. Leading us to eat more meat, which in turn gives us obesity, go on diets that fail, high cholesterol, heart attacks., go on more failed diets…….our fingers fail on the keyboard in sheer despair.

So let’s take one key learning point from Devi’s razor sharp mind, because maybe we haven’t emphasised it enough here down the years. The real problem is that new classes of antibiotics are needed :

Developing similar versions to existing antibiotics isn’t enough because they won’t be as effective against pathogens that have developed resistance: we need totally new classes of drugs. And a recent World Health Organization report noted that since 2017, while 13 new antibiotics have obtained authorisation, only two represent a new chemical class.

Here is the nub of the problem. It wont get any easier, because the best research teams are multinational, and international co-operation is breaking down rapidly. Things like phages and AI may help. Serendipitous searching in nature, in places like gardens or the jaws of Komodo dragons {LSS passim)may could also be marginally helpful. But in the last analysis, disputes about who imports which computer circuit from whom distract attention from the real question. A woman dying from childbirth needs an antibiotic, not a smartphone to photograph it.

[1]https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/apr/02/antibiotics-stop-working-prescription-gp-animal-farming

#antibiotic resistance #medicine #science #health #bacteriophage #komodo dragon