Superbugs found in high Arctic: Threat trumps war or climate

When he wrote his great post-apocalyptic novel, The Road, Cormac McCarthy did not give a precise description of the cataclysm that destroyed much of the life on Earth. He left the details to the imagination, fevered or sober, of his readers.

The discovery of genes associated with antibiotic-resistant superbugs in the high Arctic offers McCarthy’s readers, and the rest of humanity, an alternative to, say, self-inflicted nuclear destruction as the cause of our near destruction. That the genes were found in one of the most remote places on Earth shows the globalised nature of the resistance problem — one described by Britain’s health secretary as “a bigger threat than climate change or warfare”. That warning came after England’s chief medical officer warned antibiotic resistance threatens a global “apocalypse”.