The Last Antibiotics: Can We Outrun Superbugs?
Antibiotics made modern medicine safer. What happens as bacteria evade them? This video explains selection, mutation and plasmid transfer, how resistance spreads, and what the global death estimates actually measure.
Finally, NHS subscription payments and the proposed PASTEUR Act: how paying for availability could change antibiotic economics, and why global access remains contested. Sources checked 11 October 2026, including the September 2026 phage guideline. General medical and policy information, not individual treatment advice.
Historical photographs and colourised micrographs are credited on screen. Generated backgrounds are conceptual illustrations; none depict a named real person.
Educational documentary. Not financial or investment advice.
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Sources and credits
Photo credits (Wikimedia Commons)
- Alexander Fleming in his laboratory at St Mary's Hospital, Paddington, London, 1943: Official photographer, Public domain - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ASynthetic_Production_of_Penicillin_TR1468.jpg
- Penicillin in its final purified, frozen and dried form, WWII-era production photograph: Ministry of Information official photographer, Public domain - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AThe_Synthetic_Production_of_Penicillin_during_the_Second_World_War_TR1431.jpg
- Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteria, colorized scanning electron micrograph (NIAID): NIAID/NIH, Public domain - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AMethicillin-resistant_Staphylococcus_aureus_%28MRSA%29_Bacteria.jpg
- Multidrug-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae (CRE) interacting with a human neutrophil, colorized SEM (NIAID): David Dorward; Ph.D.; National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Public domain - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AMultidrug-resistant_Klebsiella_pneumoniaeand_neutrophil.jpg
- United States Senate chamber, where the PASTEUR Act has been reintroduced: United States Senate, Public domain - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AUnited_States_Senate_Floor.jpg
Primary sources
- ACS/RSC penicillin history (1999)
- CDC resistance mechanisms (31 Jan 2025) and spread (25 Sep 2025)
- GRAM, Lancet: 2019 burden (20 Jan 2022) and 2021 burden (16 Sep 2024)
- Access to Medicine Foundation, 2026 Benchmark (10 Mar 2026)
- Achaogen SEC filings (2019); Novartis in Society 2018.
- Swanson et al., Nature Machine Intelligence (2024); MIT / Cell (14 Aug 2025)
- FDA gonorrhea approvals (12 Dec 2025)
- Eliava Institute; Lederman/Bonomo (9 Feb 2026); Würstle et al., Nature Medicine (21 Sep 2026)
- NICE AMR1/AMR2 (17 Aug 2022); NHS England procurement (12 Aug 2024)
- PASTEUR Act of 2026, S.4875, introduced 23 Jun 2026; MSF response (30 Jun 2026)
Not regulated financial advice.