We often use a variety of antibacterial products like soap, without really thinking about it. It's important to keep those germs away, and stay healthy, right? But this attitude of casual and excessive use of antibiotics over the last few decades, may be putting us in grave danger.

Before the serendipitous discovery of penicillin by Alexander Flemming, bacterial infections killed many people. The discovery of penicillin, followed by other, more sophisticated, antibiotics, made it possible to tackle many infections, and made many formerly life threatening conditions quite easily treatable. In fact, the bacteria problem was considered to be solved, and scientists started worrying more about viruses like HIV and problems like cancer.

However, the indiscriminate and casual use of antibacterial products has resulted in a rapid evolution of bacteria, resulting in some deadly drug resistant strains. These strains cannot be tackled with the strongest antibiotics. So it is important, we curtail our use of antibiotics to situations when they are absolutely necessary, to slow down the development of drug resistant bacteria strains, so we are not plunged back in to the horrors of the pre-penicillin era.

Read more about drug resistant bacteria here.