Rise Of Superbugs

In the movie “Rise of the Superbugs,” scientists explain how strains of bacteria are becoming resistant to some of the drugs that humans have produced to kill them. The video gives information on the background of where these medicines have come from, how they have become resistant up until now, and a glimpse into where the future will be heading when it comes to trying to fix this resistance problem. The main bacteria that they mention throughout the video is Tuberculosis. They begin the video by explaining that this disease has been able to resist every drug that was administered to the person with TB- they kept referring to these as “superbugs.” In fact, towards the end of the video, they mention that in 1995, samples were taken from patients in Peru and it was shown that the TB bacteria had become resistant to all of the antibiotics that they used as treatment at the time. …show more content…
There are good strains of bacteria that are neutral and even some that can help humans, however, there are also some bacteria that can harm us. They then go into detail on the discovery of the first medications that were used to kill the bacteria that were harmful to us. The first discovery was an accident by Alexander Fleming in the late 1920’s. After leaving some Staphylococcus in a Petri dish, he noticed that some mold had killed this bacterium. He ended up naming this Penicillin, which came from the name of the mold that had killed the bacteria. Although he did not understand exactly how the mold was killing off the bacteria, he still published his findings, and scientists Howard Florey and Ernest Chain figured out exactly what was