Superbugs, William Hall
Superbugs, William Hall
List: $19.99 | Sale: $13.99
Club: $9.99

Superbugs
An Arms Race against Bacteria

Author: William Hall, Anthony McDonnell, Jim O'Neill

Narrator: Matthew Lloyd Davies

Unabridged: 7 hr 32 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 05/08/2018


Synopsis

Antibiotics are powerful drugs that can prevent and treat infections, but they are becoming less effective as a result of drug resistance. Resistance develops because the bacteria that antibiotics target can evolve ways to defend themselves against these drugs. When antibiotics fail, there is very little else to prevent an infection from spreading.

Unnecessary use of antibiotics in both humans and animals accelerates the evolution of drug-resistant bacteria, with potentially catastrophic personal and global consequences. Our best defenses against infectious disease could cease to work, surgical procedures would become deadly, and we might return to a world where even small cuts are life-threatening. The problem of drug resistance already kills over one million people across the world every year and has huge economic costs. Without action, this problem will become significantly worse.

Following from their work on the Review on Antimicrobial Resistance, William Hall, Anthony McDonnell, and Jim O'Neill outline the major systematic failures that have led to this growing crisis. They also provide a set of solutions to tackle these global issues that governments, industry, and public health specialists can adopt.

About William Hall

William Hall, a public policy professional, served as Senior Policy Advisor for the Review on Antimicrobial Resistance.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Cath on May 13, 2020

Very interesting and important book that focuses less on the biology of antimicrobial resistance and more on the surrounding economic, political, and societal factors that contribute to its spread, but that could also be used to help solve the problem. The book touches on the economics of antimicrobi......more

Goodreads review by Nicola on October 16, 2021

A fantastic foundational read for anti microbial resistance and it’s importance. It was incredibly enlightening and even though I did have an existing amount of prior knowledge on this subject, this book still taught me more! I loved that it had several chapters focusing on improvements for change a......more

Goodreads review by Daniel on January 15, 2021

Excerpt from a review for Small Things Considered Published by Harvard University Press in 2018, Superbugs by Hall, McDonnell, and O'Neill (Figure 2) presents a well-documented argument for why we should be concerned about antibiotic resistance, with its relevance still applicable here two years late......more

Goodreads review by Benji on January 17, 2019

Tragedy of the global commons, what we have been witnessing is essentially overfishing in the sea of antibiotic effectiveness. Aelin Therapeutics is an interesting Belgian life sciences company innovating in this field, weaponising protein aggregation.......more

Goodreads review by The Inquisitive Biologist on July 25, 2020

A slim volume about a large problem – we are losing the evolutionary arms race with bacteria. See my full review at [URL not allowed]......more