Now I'm not normally one for scaremongering, or unnecessary hyperbole, but given that this story features on the BBC News website and not the Daily Mail, and contains quotes from UK's Chief Medical Officer, then there might be some cause for concern:

 

Professor Dame Sally Davies described it as a "ticking time bomb".

 

She warned that routine operations could become deadly in just 20 years if we lose the ability to fight infection.

 

Dame Sally urged the government to raise the issue during next month's G8 Summit in London.

 

Dame Sally said: "If we don't take action, then we may all be back in an almost 19th Century environment where infections kill us as a result of routine operations. We won't be able to do a lot of our cancer treatments or organ transplants."

 

She said pharmaceutical companies needed to be encouraged to develop new drugs, because the manufacture of antibiotics was not viewed as profitable.

 

"We haven't had a new class of antibiotics since the late 80s and there are very few antibiotics in the pipeline of the big pharmaceutical companies that develop and make drugs," she said.

 

"We haven't as a society globally incentivised making antibiotics. It's quite simple - if they make something to treat high blood pressure or diabetes and it works, we will use it on our patients everyday.

 

"Whereas antibiotics will only be used for a week or two when they're needed, and then they have a limited life span because of resistance developing anyway."

 

So, a real cause for concern or unnecessary hyperbole? Should the government be doing more to fund research into more effective antibiotics?

I suspect that part of the problem is over-prescription of antibiotics. Too many people go to their GP when they have nothing more than a cold. GPs then prescribe antibiotics when they should just tell the patient to go home and put up with it.