We Need a Global Bank of Germs
Set in a tuberculosis sanitarium in the Swiss Alps on the eve of World War I, Thomas Mann’s novel “The Magic Mountain” delves deep into the “feverish process of decay and repair” that is life.
In the century that has passed, the use of antibiotics made tuberculosis disappear from the modern world. But now a drug-resistant form of this horrible bug has appeared — and we have nothing in our medicine chest with which to fight it. Enamored of the antibiotics’ power, medicine has overprescribed them, making a new pandemic possible when the old strain of bacteria adapted.
But humans are resilient too, and we’ve known for decades about “good germs” that can resist or defeat “bad germs” in our bodies.… Seguir leyendo »