The post-antibiotic age is upon us.

[Workingman]

We are entering an age of untreatable infections possibly within the next few years. Mutations have already been found in E. coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae and Pseudomonas aeruginosa: others wil follow. It has already jumped from pigs to humans and may be in Laos and Malaysia as well as China. Once it goes global, as it will, we will all be in danger.

It has come about because farmers the world over have been routinely administering antibiotics to their animals. Add that to doctors prescribing antibiotics to patients who do not need them and the antibiotic apocalypse looms.

The following quote is particularly pertinent to me as I was treated there for a blood infection last December. I was on drips of two antibiotics and only once they began to kick in was I allowed home on the same antibiotics taken orally.

"The transfer rate of this resistance gene is ridiculously high, that doesn't look good," said Prof Mark Wilcox, from Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust.

His hospital is now dealing with multiple cases "where we're struggling to find an antibiotic" every month - an event he describes as being as "rare as hens' teeth" five years ago.

He said there was no single event that would mark the start of the antibiotic apocalypse, but it was clear "we're losing the battle".

[Suff]

They've been warned for decades now not to use antibiotics to build bigger herds faster. Needless to say the farmers have ignored them as they search for faster ways to get more out of their land.

I don't quite blame the farmers so much as the superstore chains who have been trying for force farmers to take ever less for their animals as they take ever more margin from the products.

The only good news on the horizon is genetically engineered antibiotics and antiviruses which are tailored to attack ony the infection they are supposed to treat.

Not that this will help our generation too much. It's also not helped at all by the way our own medical profession go about treating us. I arrived back from Argentina in 2010 having had a urine infection for 6 weeks, 4 weeks in Argentina. I had been passing blood for all 6 weeks and the infection had a serious grip on me. I know because I don't normally bother, my body can fight of most of them.

They did the microbiology and determined the antibiotics. They were fantastic, started working after day1, cleared the symptoms by about day 6. But the doctor had only given me 7 days prescription because of the price of the antibiotics. I was re-infected within a week and immune to the excellent antibiotics I had been given before. I had to take 6 weeks high dosage of a cheap nasty antibiotic which caused quite a lot of side effects before I was finally free of the infection.

So our medical system created a variant of the infection by being stupid with the prescription. Had I cross infected someone in some way, I would have passed on yet another resistant strain.

It can't end well. I'm just glad that I very rarely ever need antibiotics. I think 3 times in my life.

[Kaz]

This is very scary, and we really only have ourselves to blame We had the magic bullet, but squandered it

[Workingman]

I do not particularly blame the farmers either.

There has been a collective conspiracy in many areas, and a hell of a lot of stupidity, bringing this about.

The UN, WHO, Oxfam, Save the Children and other NGOs have all clamoured for increased food production, especially protein, to meet demand. Every country I have ever visited seemed to have endless food programmes - how to cook this meat, that fish, this fowl. Every chef wants us to pick the leanest meat, trim the fat, remove the skin. We, the consumers then, do just that. The farmers, in return, try to give us what we want, and so it goes on. The whole system is on artificial life support.

We also need to look at our lifestyles. Magazines, newspapers and TV are full of adverts for products designed to keep our lives spotlessly clean. We must shampoo with this, shower or bath in that (twice a day!) wash our laundry with this gel/powder or liquid, clean our pots and pans with antibacterial liquid and bleach everything else so that we kill 99.9% of all known germs. Then, when a germ does get us we rush off to the doctor for a week's course of antibiotics.

[KateLMead]

And now we learn that Homeopathy is likely to banned.. Crazy "it works"

[Aggers]

Just another reason why the future doesn't look too good.

Let's be happy while we can.

[Workingman]

Kate, homoeopathy is not to be banned, but it will no longer be part of NHS treatments. Believers can still partake, but at their own expense, the same as naturopathy.

Aggers, you are probably right, enjoy it while it lasts, but I do fear for my children and any future grandchildren. Our two generations, more than any before, have screwed things up badly.