On January 24, 2013, Dame Sally Davies - the UK's top medical advisor - acknowledged that the increased numbers of antibiotic-resistant diseases has the potential to create an 'apocalyptic scenario' comprable to terrorism threats. According to the UK's Daily Mail, she says there is the risk "that within 20 years people going for simple operations would die of routine infections because we may 'run out of antibiotics' that work."
DCP3 Project Director Rachel Nugent spoke to New York's BreakThru Radio on February 7 about Dame Sally Davies' claim and the growing threat of antibiotic resistance. Below is a segment of Dr. Nugent's radio interview. Click here to read the full interview.
BreakThru Radio: "The U.K.'s chief medical officer, Dame Sally Davies recently stated that antibiotic resistant diseases pose an apocalyptic threat to the country as much as any national security threat. Is this in any way hyperbole?"
Rachel Nugent: "Yes and no. Actually, "apocalyptic" is a pretty strong term and I think that most people would understand it to mean widespread devastation or doom like in the movies. That's not going to happen because of antibiotic resistance, and it seems to me a bit like crying wolf to say that it is. But on the other hand, apocalyptic does mean the end of life as we've known it and this is true. For instance, how many times in your life have you just turned to the doctor for an antibiotic without even thinking about it if you couldn't get it? It used to be way back in the last century died from all those things kids get when they're young [like] pneumonia, and in poor countries they still do because of the lack of the right drugs, because of the lack of antibiotics."