Drug pollution causing antibiotic-resistant 'superbugs'
The manufacture of antibiotics is helping to create a generation of ‘superbugs’ that are immune to the drugs, and which could spark a global epidemic of untreatable diseases.
Waste from the processing of antibiotics and other pharmaceuticals is polluting rivers in India – where many of our drugs are manufactured – and creating a generation of bacteria that are resistant to all antibiotics.
Ironically, the manufacture of drugs could be the cause of a global epidemic of infectious diseases, say researchers from the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. (Source: PLoS One, 2011; 6: e17038).