A Life Cut Short When Antibiotics Stopped Working

Most people don’t even think twice when they get an infection. Much of the time, the best treatment is simple: fluids and rest. Bacterial infections can be treated with antibiotics – a quick course of pills, maybe a week or 10 days, and you’re done.

But the rise of drug-resistant pathogens is changing that. These germs (viruses, bacteria, parasites, and fungi) have developed the ability to survive even the strongest of antimicrobial drugs. This phenomenon is known as antimicrobial resistance or AMR.

Drug-resistant infections just from bacteria play a role in close to five million deaths a year. That’s five million people. One of those people was a promising, intelligent young woman named Mallory Smith. An honors student, athlete, and writer, Mallory was just 25 when she died. She had cystic fibrosis, but what killed her was a superbug infection she had caught when she was 12. This happened even after getting a lung transplant.

Now Mallory’s mother, Diane Shader Smith, is telling her daughter’s story to the world. She wants people to know about Mallory and about the threat of antimicrobial resistance. She’s also collecting the stories of other people who have been made victims of this growing threat to humanity because she understands the difference stories make in ensuring people understand the gravity of antimicrobial resistance.

Listen as she tells One World, One Health about her daughter’s struggles and about her own hopes for the future of humanity.