How Resistance Happens

Bacteria evolve resistance through a brutally simple process that humans are accelerating:

• Natural selection — when you take antibiotics, most bacteria die, but a few with natural mutations survive and multiply unopposed
• Incomplete courses — stopping antibiotics early kills weak bacteria but lets partially resistant ones survive and adapt
• Agricultural overuse — roughly 73% of all antibiotics sold globally are used on livestock, not humans
• Horizontal gene transfer — bacteria can literally swap resistance genes with other bacteria, even different species

We're not just failing to develop new antibiotics fast enough. We're actively training bacteria to defeat the ones we have.