UPDATE: The Silent Epidemiology of Antibiotic Resistance Two days ago we reported how antibiotic resistance kills an estimated 1.27 million people annually—a crisis amplified by limited surveillance infrastructure in lower-income regions. New reporting from NeurIPS highlights how geopolitical tensions between the US and China are now disrupting the international academic collaboration essential to antimicrobial resistance research, potentially slowing the development of alternative therapies and global data-sharing initiatives. This friction compounds an already fragmented epidemiological landscape where resistance tracking remains inconsistent across borders.