Superbugs are a major threat. Washington should prioritize antibiotic development now

We don’t know when the next pandemic will strike. But we have a good idea of where it’ll start — in hospitals. Bacteria and fungi are constantly evolving and growing more and more resilient to the antibiotics we use to treat them. These “superbugs” will eventually mutate to resist even our last-line-of-defense treatments. When that happens, these microscopic killers could spread from room to room within hospitals and eventually out into the world. Today, these “superbugs” — resistant to the most potent treatments we have — pose a threat during procedures ranging from organ transplants to routi...