• Question: Do you think antibiotics could be a possible cause of human extinction?

    Asked by Leonie to ☣ Danna, Lindsay, Jonny on 14 Jun 2016.
    • Photo: Lindsay Robinson

      Lindsay Robinson answered on 14 Jun 2016:


      Hi Lele,

      I don’t think antibiotics are likely to cause human extinction. Or at least I hope not!

      I suppose in theory if we continue to overprescribe antibiotics and bugs mutate to fight all treatments we have then they could become unstoppable.

      There’s research going on at the moment to find other ways to kill bacteria. One example is scientists are trying to make ‘predatory bacteria’ which actually attack bad bacteria. Fingers crossed someone sorts this out before we’re extinct!

    • Photo: Jonathan Hunter

      Jonathan Hunter answered on 14 Jun 2016:


      Humans survived for millions of years without antibiotics, hopefully we could survive without them again if needed.

    • Photo: Danna Gifford

      Danna Gifford answered on 14 Jun 2016:


      I don’t think antibiotics themselves could be a cause for human extinction. If bacteria do become resistant to all antibiotics, it’s possible that there would be a large effect on human populations, but like Jonny said I don’t think humans would go extinct entirely.

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