Question: With antibiotic resistance becoming an increasingly bigger threat, what would you say is the best solution?

David Foley answered on 14 Nov 2014:

I think we face real problems with over- and unnecessary prescriptions of antibiotics in both people and animals (which is a major pool of resistance potential that is often not discussed).

People continue to demand some pills from their doctor, which either will be ineffective because their illness is viral in origin, or they don’t fully complete because the feel better half way through the course of medication.

In the short-term therefore, we urgently need to educate and inform the public, and well as enforce a more sensible perscripting policy from doctors and vets.

I would also argue that we are in dire need of new antibiotics and we are “running out” already. There is little market for the big drug companies to get involved in antibiotic research – any discovery they make will be held in reserve by hospitals as the last defence and there will be limited profit potential.

It will therefore fall to academic groups and biotech companies to plug this gap – and whilst we are getting there (http://app.dundee.ac.uk/pressreleases/2013/february13/newcentre.htm), we have a long way to go before we can match big pharma’s experience.

PM David Cameron recently warned of us returning to “the dark ages” if this challenge is not met – and he is right.