The threat of antibiotic resistant bacteria haunts the entire world.

I first published "Armageddon’s Shadow" as "The Shadow of Armageddon" in 2004. The pandemic described in the novel, unlike the Covid-19 viral infection, is caused by antibiotic resistant bacteria. Viruses and bacteria are vastly different microorganisms, as are the treatments for each. Viruses are much smaller; the largest of them are tinier than the smallest bacteria. They consist of only a protein outer covering enclosing either DNA or RNA. They cannot survive or even reproduce without a host. They enter more complex cells, including those of bacteria, and reprogram them to produce new viruses. They spew them out until the cells burst and die.

Fortunately, since the first of the twentieth century vaccines have dramatically reduced new cases of viral diseases like polio, measles and chicken pox, and prevented infections like influenza, hepatitis A, hepatitis B and others.

One of the most important breakthroughs in medical history was the discovery of antibiotics to fight bacterial infections in the early twentieth century. Bacteria, like all living things, adapt to changing conditions by means of natural selection. They have become immanently resourceful at developing defenses against antibiotics. This trait and the medical profession’s overuse of antibiotics has made many bacteria resistant to them.

I have read scientists’ and medical researchers’ warnings about the increase of antibiotic resistant bacteria for decades. That finally led me to write the novel. At that time the Centers for Disease Control and prevention (CDC) estimated the annual number at 23,000.

According to a later report by the CDC, published on November 13, 2019, (https://www.cdc.gov/drugresistance/Biggest-Threats.html), over 2.8 million Americans are infected by antibiotic resistant bacteria and fungi each year and over 35,000 die as a result.

Imagine how startled I was, however, to learn the following. On November 22, 2018, researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine published a report (https://doi.org/10.1017/ice.2018.304) placing the number of American deaths by resistant bacteria and fungi in 2010 between 153,113 and 162,044, and worldwide at 700,000.

Chapter Seven of "Armageddon's Shadow" discusses the extensive arsenal of weapons and tools bacteria use to protect themselves against antibiotics and the “arms race” between bacteria and humans. And how bacteria are winning.