Tucson, Arizona - Oct. 23, 2013 – Each year, at least two million people are infected with drug-resistant superbugs and at least 23,000 die from them. This FRONTLINE episode covers three seemingly disconnected events beginning at the same time. What they have in common is a type of infection that is becoming impossible to treat. It is a crisis that is spreading alarmingly fast, threatening everyone, even the healthy.
The first story starts in Tucson, Arizona, in May 2011. Addie Rerecich was a happy 11-year-old girl who loved sports and talked a mile a minute. But when a mysterious pain in her hip landed her in the hospital in 2011, she began a downward spiral into the nightmare of a new kind of antibiotic-resistant infection that is confounding doctors across the world. Journalist David Hoffman first heard about Addie Rerecich while investigating for FRONTLINE what doctors and government officials are now calling a nightmare, a kind of dangerous bacteria that is increasingly resistant to the strongest antibiotics.
About FRONTLINE: Since 1983, FRONTLINE has served as American public television’s flagship public affairs series. Hailed upon its debut on PBS as “the last best hope for broadcast documentaries,” FRONTLINE’s stature over 30 seasons is reaffirmed each week through incisive documentaries covering the scope and complexity of the human experience. Visit the FRONTLINE website.
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