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IronJack is right.
The article is factually correct on many points; overuse of antibiotics has resulted in development of resistant bacteria more rapidly than would have occurred otherwise. It is my opinion that that is all that has happened, and we are a few decades ahead of where we would be if I and all of my colleagues had used antibiotics "by the book." Eventually though, we would be where we are, because the bugs will always survive.

BUT it is alarmist and irresponsible to start talking about "doomsday bugs." 99+% of all bacteria are still sensitive to readily available antibiotics. The few people who die due to overwhelming infection are typically old, debilitated, diabetic, or immunosuppressed patients who 50 years ago would not have survived their primary illness long enough to get an infection. Consider that even a century ago, when there were no antibiotics at all, most people did not die right away when they caught an infectious disease. Granted a lot did, but it was improvements in hygiene and sanitation that was responsible for the bulk of the lengthened lifespan. Also keep in mind that some of the greatest killers in history were not bacteria, but viruses (samllpox, flu, polio), and we are now just beginning to develop antiviral medications. So yes, if you are chronically weakened by diabetes, heart failure, AIDS, or advanced age, these bugs are something to worry about, and do your best to keep healthy and out of hospitals (don't even visit sick friends). If you are otherwise healthy, your chances of succumming to an infectious disease are much less than they were 100 or even 50 years ago.

What to do? On a micro scale, don't demand an antibiotic prescription from your doctor if what ails you appears to be viral. If you are serving as a juror in a medical malpractice trial, have a little sympathy for the defendent doctor whois being attacked by a hired gun plaintiff's expert who claims that the plaintiff would have done so much better if only the right antibiotic had been prescribed a day earlier. Most important, keep the government out of the pharmaceutical business. Nothing kills innovation like government intervention, threats of price controls, or higher taxes on the people who risk their time and careers looking for the next effective drug.

You make very sensible & re-assuring comments. In all reality we can compare the unfortunate case of the teenage boy the article starts with to cases where "previously healthy" children of the same age die suddenly of heart failure.

This happend just a year or two ago to a young high school girl from a local school. She just died after a soccer game. Obviously she had been examined time & time again by doctors, and had no known heart problems. But she died all the same.

Sometimes unpredictable things happen.

I'm told that many resistant colonies -- usually staph. aureus, come from hospitals themselves, where overuse of disinfectants have killed off all but the hardiest strains.

There's a lesson here for the Safety Sams and Sandys. A little bump or bruise now and again is good for the soul. Sometimes the cost of "protection" is only a greater vulnerability.