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Fifty years of easy living with the miracle of antibiotics was a major contributor to the hubris that gripped the industrial nations in the early twenty-first century. Smallpox was eliminated except in strategic laboratory samples. Measles was conquered. Sexually transmitted diseases that used to leave people maimed and crazy were cured with one visit to the doctor. Many tropical diseases seemed to be on the wane as immunology and pharmacology bolstered widespread progress in sanitation and nutrition. The vanquishing of disease represented a meta-victory by mankind over a much greater set of enemies than the parochial combatants of our geopolitical wars. Indeed, these great advances of medical science against disease took place against the backdrop of war. The United States emerged victorious from the last world war, having defeated manifest political evil, armed with penicillin and sulfa drugs. The postwar antibiotic miracle contributed to a false sense of security in the public and a sense of adolescent-like omnipotence among leaders in science, business, and politics. (en) |
