How Baking Soda Could Help Fight Deadly Superbugs
Scientists are racing to find better tests for drug-resistant microbes that may eventually kill more people than cancer.
Resistant enterococci bacteria
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Every year, tens of thousands of Americans die from infections antibiotics can’t effectively treat. In the next few decades, that number may rise significantly.
Meanwhile, physicians are still choosing which drugs to use, based on a test that hasn’t really changed since John F. Kennedy was president. Moreover, the half century-old test has a serious flaw that’s long been overlooked by doctors: Bacteria act differently inside humans than they do in the lab, which means lab tests can deliver misleading results.