The triumph of bacteria

The end of antibiotics?


Antoine|Tibon Andremont, Michel Tibon-Cornillot

20,00 €
Should we fear today a planetary epidemic against which antibiotics will not be able to do anything? On the one hand, bacteria, innumerable, a million billion millions, installed practically in all terrestrial ecological niches. Opposite, men, "only" 6.5 billion people. For an extremely short period, the last half century, the war between these two opponents raged. Hundreds of thousands of tons of antibiotic products have been released into the environment or ingested by humans and animals. The result of this struggle is now clear: the bacteria have mutated and are increasingly resistant. As for the pharmaceutical laboratories, they have practically exhausted their weapons, now producing their drugs on a massive scale according to a logic of surge, a headlong rush that leaves less and less room for basic research. For the first time, a renowned researcher and an eminent anthropologist have succeeded in combining their analyzes in a landmark synthesis. Returning to the fascinating history of antibiotics, analyzing the challenges of their production, they explore possible solutions. And remind us in passing that in a healthy human body, there are more bacteria than cells...
The author

Antoine Andremont is Professor at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Paris 7. He directs the medical bacteriology laboratory of the Bichat Claude-Bernard hospital. He has devoted 25 years to studying the bacteria responsible for human infections. He was one of the first groups of researchers who alerted us to the risks of antibiotics. Michel Tibon-Cornillot is an anthropologist at the School of Advanced Studies in Social Sciences (EHESS). Doctor of State in philosophy, he worked at the Institut Pasteur in a molecular genetics laboratory. He is the author of a book entitled Les corps transfigurés (Editions Le Seuil, Prix Psyché). He places his research at the intersection of philosophy and biology, demonstrating that the central question of contemporary techniques is not that of their regulation but that of their uncontrolled surge.

258 pages | ISBN: 9782353410002

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