Study: Superbugs Predicted to Kill 39M by 2050

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Above: Jean Lee, a PhD student at Melbourne's Doherty Institute, inspects the superbug Staphylcocus epidermidis on an agar plate in Melbourne on September 4, 2018. Image copyright: William West/Contributor/AFP via Getty Images

The Facts

  • The Global Research on Antimicrobial Resistance (GRAM) Project found that superbugs — bacterial strains or pathogens that develop resistance to antibiotics — are projected to kill over 39M people by 2050, particularly older people.

  • GRAM found that while deaths of children under five due to antimicrobial resistance (AMR) decreased by almost 50% from 1990-2021, deaths for those over 70 increased by 80% over the same period.

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The Spin

Pro-establishment narrative

AMR is a global phenomenon that threatens both rich and poor countries. Due in large part to antibiotic misuse, more people are now at risk of contracting deadly diseases like HIV, malaria, and tuberculosis. To fix this, both national and global bodies, alongside industry leaders, must track antibiotic usage, work toward eradicating its abuse, and invest in new, non-resistant medicines.

WHO

Establishment-critical narrative

AMR is the result of collusion between the agricultural and pharmaceutical industries. While Big Agribusiness profits off of pumping its factory farm animals full of antibiotics, Big Pharma gets rich by selling the antibiotics to them. What's worse is that they get away with it by spending millions of dollars annually on lobbying the government and funding misleading research.

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Metaculus Prediction

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