Today’s antibiotics are quickly losing their ability to combat bacterial infections. What has caused this pharmacological disaster? This program examines the link between the use of antibiotics in livestock as growth promoters and the rise of resistance to their effectiveness in humans. Although certain classes of antibiotics have already been banned in agricultural use, some authorities are fighting further bans because they deny the food chain link to people. In Japan, Australia, and the United States, a strain of golden staph has appeared that is resistant even to vancomycin. If antibiotics—the wonder drugs that brought tuberculosis and pneumonia under control—have lost their potency, how vulnerable is society? How many will die as a result? (28 minutes)