Learn · TED

Talk15 min

The coming crisis in antibiotics

Ramanan Laxminarayan · TED

Watch At TED

About

Antibiotic drugs save lives. But we simply use them too much — and often for non-lifesaving purposes, like treating the flu and even raising cheaper chickens. The result, says researcher Ramanan Laxminarayan, is that the drugs will stop working for everyone, as the bacteria they target grow more and more resistant. He calls on all of us (patients and doctors alike) to think of antibiotics -- and their ongoing effectiveness -- as a finite resource, and to think twice before we tap into it. It's a sobering look at how global medical trends can strike home.

The talk

  1. The coming crisis in antibiotics 15 min · TED's player

Credits and licence

Institution
TED
Department
TEDMED 2014
Speaker
Ramanan Laxminarayan
Year
2014
Level
For everyone
Language
English
Subjects
Medicine and health, Economics
Source
TED
Licence
CC BY-NC-ND 4.0, as TED states it. Non-commercial use only, and no changed versions. TED's terms
Attribution
TED Talks are licensed by TED under Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0 International and are shown here in TED's own player, as TED's usage policy asks.
Who can watch
TED gives no rating. Invisible Network shows it to Teens profiles and older, judged from what the source says about it. How courses are placed