A critically important and startling look at the harmful effects of overusing antibiotics from the field's leading expert.

"In Antibiotics, readers will learn about the science and technology behind the development of antibiotics. Vibrant, full-color photos and carefully leveled text will engage readers as they learn more about the challenges overcome to create antibiotics and how this super science feat continues to adapt in our changing world. A Take a Look! infographic aids understanding, sidebars present interesting, supplementary information, and an activity helps readers learn more. Children can learn more about antibiotics using our safe search engine that provides relevant, age-appropriate websites. Antibiotics also features reading tips for teachers and parents, a table of contents, a glossary, and an index. Antibiotics is part of Jump!'s Super Science Feats: Medical Breakthroughs series"--

FRONTLINE investigates the widespread use of antibiotics in food animals and whether it is fueling the growing crisis of antibiotic resistance in people. Also this hour: An exclusive interview with the family of a young man who died in a nightmare bacteria outbreak that swept through a hospital at the National Institutes of Health.

"Nightmare bacteria." That's how the CDC describes a frightening new threat spreading quickly in hospitals, communities, and across the globe. FRONTLINE reporter David Hoffman investigates the alarming rise of untreatable infections: from a young girl thrust onto life support in an Arizona hospital, to a young American infected in India who comes home to Seattle, and an uncontrollable outbreak at the nation's most prestigious hospital, where eighteen patients were mysteriously infected and six died, despite frantic efforts to contain the killer bacteria. Fueled by decades of antibiotic overuse, the crisis has deepened as major drug companies, squeezed by Wall Street expectations, have abandoned the development of new antibiotics. Without swift action, the miracle age of antibiotics could be coming to an end.

In the anxious days after Pearl Harbor, talented "Life" magazine reporter Clara Shipley finds herself on top of one of the nation's most important stories--the race to discover penicillin at the Rockefeller Institute. When a researcher at the institute dies under suspicious circumstances, the stakes become starkly clear: a murder has been committed to obtain these lucrative new drugs. With lives and a new love hanging in the balance, Claire will put herself at the center of danger to find a killer--no matter what price she may have to pay.

Epidemiologist Steffanie Strathdee and her husband, psychologist Tom Patterson, were vacationing in Egypt when Tom came down with a stomach bug. What at first seemed like a case of food poisoning quickly turned critical, and by the time Tom had been transferred via emergency medevac to the world-class medical center at UC San Diego, where both he and Steffanie worked, blood work revealed why modern medicine was failing: Tom was fighting one of the most dangerous, antibiotic- resistant bacteria in the world. Frantic, Steffanie combed through research old and new and came across phage therapy: the idea that the right virus, aka "the perfect predator," can kill even the most lethal bacteria. Phage treatment had fallen out of favor almost 100 years ago, after antibiotic use went mainstream. Now, with time running out, Steffanie appealed to phage researchers all over the world for help. She found allies at the FDA, researchers from Texas A&M, and a clandestine Navy biomedical center --and together they resurrected a forgotten cure. A nail-biting medical mystery, The Perfect Predator is a story of love and survival against all odds, and the (re)discovery of a powerful new weapon in the global superbug crisis.