Conclusion
The authors agree that the potential risk of breeding drug-resistant bacteria outweighs the known benefits of using antibiotics in animal feed. As the arsenal of antibiotics available to treat infections dwindles with increasingly resistant strains, humans will be unable to combat serious infections brought on by currently innocuous bacteria. Some deadly strains of bacteria are suppressible by only one type of antibiotic. Furthermore, a outbreak of drug-resistant bacteria is not reversible; these strains will persist in the environment. Humans can contribute to the evolution of super-strong pathogens, but may have to co-exist with them without the only tool available to fight them: antibiotics. If we loose our only weapon against these deadly bacteria, we have lost the battle of man versus microbe.
