The long-standing problem of antibiotic resistance suddenly is getting fresh attention. A blistering report from a project chartered by the British government predicts it will kill one person every three seconds by the year 2050. The World Health Organization made it a priority at this year’s World Health Assembly. In agriculture, the Food and Drug Administration is asking the livestock industry for the first time to account for how drugs are used in different meat animal species.

And that all seems to be happening just in time, given the discovery in the United States last week of E. coli  bearing the gene for colistin resistance, which takes away the effectiveness of the last available last-resort antibiotic.

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