Jim O'Neill, Columnist

China Can Lead the Fight on Superbugs

By 2050, more people could be dying because of antibiotic resistance than cancer.

December 28, 2014 at 11:00 PM UTC

Jim O'Neill worked for Goldman Sachs Group Inc. from 1995 until 2013, serving most recently as chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, and as the firm's chief economist from 2001 to 2011. Before joining Goldman Sachs, he was head of global research at Swiss Bank Corp. O'Neill is the creator of the BRIC acronym, which was derived from his thesis that Brazil, Russia, India and China would dominate growth in emerging markets. He is a member of the boards of the Brussels-based policy-research centers Itinera Institute and Bruegel. He earned a degree in economics from Sheffield University in 1978 and a doctorate from the University of Surrey in 1982. He lives in London.

We're taking too many antibiotics.
Photographer: JOEL SAGET/AFP/Getty Images

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One of the most potent threats to global economic prosperity is too little discussed. Resistance to antibiotics, caused in large part by overuse and misuse, is already well established and recognized by specialists as a problem -- but it doesn't yet frighten the public. It should.

I've been looking into the issue closely since I was appointed chairman of a review into antimicrobial resistance (AMR) by the U.K. government. We've just published some interim findings -- and I have to tell you, I'm alarmed. This danger needs to sink in. The scale of the problem, left unattended, is truly unsettling.