From KCRW in Santa Monica and PRI, Public Radio International, this is To the Point.

Bugs, drugs, and superbugs.

Hello again, I'm Arminowley, and this is To the Point from Public Radio International.

A daily look at the issues Americans care about most.

A top American health officials has its time to sound an alarm about a potential nightmare for public health.

A British counterpart compares it to the threat from terrorism.

It's the growing resistance of bacteria to antibiotics, which could set medicine back by 100 years.

Over-prescription by doctors and use in farm animals get part of

the blame, and despite the need for new antibiotics, Big Pharma is cutting back on research and development.

It's an all-too-familiar problem that's becoming increasingly urgent. What will it take to solve it?

What can we do in the meantime? I'm a reporter's notebook later on Cyprus,

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Hello again, Warren Olney, back with To the Point.

Without antibiotics, the risk of infection would set back the practice of medicine by a hundred

years.

Now, superbugs that resist antibiotics

are getting ahead of new drugs to fight them. It's got to the point where U.S. and British

public health officials warned this month of a potential nightmare. We'll hear why it's getting

...