Germs develop a deadly defense Drug-resistant bacteria discovered in Detroit
Staph aureusis a common pathogen that infects about 400,000 U.S. hospital patients a year. About one-quarter of them die. For decades, scientists have been dreading -- but expecting -- a staph aureusstrain to emerge that is resistant to vancomycin.
Some experts postulate that eventually, so many bacteria will develop resistance that antibiotics won't work and hospitals will be filled with people dying from infections, as they were in the 1920s.