Letter: Antibiotic alarm

I once worked in an ethical pharmaceutical division of what is now GlaxoSmithKline and I have never forgotten its scientists' warning of humanity's microbiological time bomb.

What stuck in my mind was the researchers' dismay at our GPs' over-prescription of antibiotics. But that dismay turned to fear when they started to describe the massive and unregulated overuse of these drugs on livestock by farmers, not to cure disease but to increase profits.

Large doses of antibiotics make animals put on weight more quickly - but eventually creates superbugs. The practice was later banned in the EU but farmers are still allowed to administer huge doses to intensively reared pigs, cows and chickens.

This recent morphing in Germany of a common bacterium into a deadly strain may not be the Apocalypse - but it is coming.

(Dr) John Cameron

Howard Place

St Andrews