HEALTH INTEL The Antibiotic Resistance Crisis: A Predictable Storm Since Fleming's 1928 penicillin discovery, antibiotics have prevented an estimated 200+ million deaths, yet overuse has created a counterforce—the CDC reports antibiotic-resistant infections now cause 35,000+ annual US deaths and 2.8 million infections yearly. Globally, resistant pathogens could cause 10 million deaths annually by 2050 if current trajectories continue, surpassing cancer mortality. This matters because the problem stems directly from success: as antibiotics became cheap and ubiquitous (50% of prescriptions are unnecessary), bacteria evolved faster than we invented new drugs—the last major antibiotic class was discovered in 1987.