Resistance and Escapism: The Risks and Rewards of Disaster Stories
RESISTANCE AND ESCAPISM: THE RISKS AND REWARDS OF DISASTER STORIES Many of us have already come into contact with Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) through personal experience of the effects of MSRA and other resistant infections. Many more have become aware of AMR through media stories, such as an article in the Daily Telegraph, entitled ‘Is this antibiotic apocalypse?’, which starts: “Imagine a world where a scratch would strike terror into your soul. A place where giving birth is a life-and-death experience, where every sore throat and stomach upset is potentially lethal.” (Hanlon, 2013; see also Davies et al., 2013) Given the tenor of the media coverage, it is no surprise that some of the stories presented here tend toward a Hollywood notion of the apocalyptic event, painting a picture of a world where an ‘Antibiotics Crisis’ has shattered the existing order in an instant. While sudden disasters are effective at seizing attention, and provide some of the excitement which attracts us to stories, they must be used with caution. Stories which go too far in this dramatic, even escapist, direction risk desensitising the public to the already very real and very serious problem of a slow, creeping change in what diseases we can control. For example many of these stories depict a world in which hygiene has become an all-consuming concern. We read about face-masks, hazmat suits, super-sterile isolation wards etc. as ‘weapons’ in what seems to be a futile fight against infection and contagion. This is also a future of social isolation and social division, with some stories exploring class-divisions between the dirty and almost dead and the clean and barely alive; between the superhygienic rich inside and the chaotic poor outside. Hygiene is undoubtedly a major ‘weapon’ in the fight against AMR. But the image of the all-or-nothing disaster, in which one scratch, or one crack in the seal can kill is not the only, or even necessarily the most likely possible AMR future.
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