Antibiotics initially worked miracles, saving millions of lives. In just decades, many of the wonder drugs are ineffective. How did it happen? This program reports on a battle for survival between humans and microbes, providing a concise history of antibiotics, as well as tracing their decline in efficacy. Their overuse and misuse is examined in medicine, agriculture, and domestic cleaning products. Special attention is given to the world's first...

Each year, an estimated 2 million people in the U.S. are infected with antibiotic-resistant bacteria-and at least 23,000 die. As the crisis deepens, FRONTLINE correspondent David E. Hoffman turns his attention to the American farm, a sector that comprises an estimated 70 percent of all antibiotics sold. Hoffman travels the country to investigate new research out of Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Texas focusing on how antibiotics on the farm might be contributing...

Only 50 years since the development of penicillin, bacteria has emerged that is resistant to every known antibiotic. Is the era of antibiotic wonder drugs coming to an end? This program searches for an answer to that question - an answer that will affect the lives of hundreds of millions around the world.

Today's antibiotics are quickly losing their ability to combat bacterial infections. What has caused this pharmacological disaster? This program examines the link between the use of antibiotics in livestock as growth promoters and the rise of resistance to their effectiveness in humans. Although certain classes of antibiotics have already been banned in agricultural use, some authorities are fighting further bans because they deny the food chain link...

An investigation into the global advance of antibiotic-resistant superbugs and the threat they pose to modern medicine and millions of patients worldwide. Reporter Fergus Walsh travels to India and finds restricted, life-saving antibiotics on sale without prescription and talks to patients back in the UK whose recovery depends on them.

A New York Times bestselling author shares this exhilarating story of cutting-edge science and the race against the clock to find new treatments in the fight against the antibiotic-resistant bacteria known as superbugs. Physician, researcher, and ethics professor Matt McCarthy is on the front lines of a groundbreaking clinical trial testing a new antibiotic to fight lethal superbugs, bacteria that have built up resistance to the life-saving drugs...

FRONTLINE reporter David Hoffman investigates the alarming rise of untreatable infections: from a young girl thrust onto life support in an Arizona hospital, to a young American infected in India who comes home to Seattle, and an uncontrollable outbreak at the nation's most prestigious hospital, where 18 patients were mysteriously infected and six died, despite frantic efforts to contain the killer bacteria. Fueled by decades of antibiotic overuse,...

In the anxious days after Pearl Harbor, talented "Life" magazine reporter Clara Shipley finds herself on top of one of the nation's most important stories--the race to discover penicillin at the Rockefeller Institute. When a researcher at the institute dies under suspicious circumstances, the stakes become starkly clear: a murder has been committed to obtain these lucrative new drugs. With lives and a new love hanging in the balance, Claire will put...

Antibiotics are not the answer to every childhood illness. Parents need to work with their child's doctors and nurses to learn how to help their child feel better.

Researchers at the National University of Ireland Galwayare investigating the increasing amount of antibiotic resistant bacteria being discovered in waterways. This program explores the potential impacts of this on the environment and on human health, where bacteria such MRSA no longer respond to antibiotics, and suggest ways that we might be able to combat this trend through a combination of improved waste-water management, a reduction in the over...