Antibiotics are truly miracle drugs that have saved countless millions of lives. But antibiotic resistance is a critical public health issue that is eroding the effectiveness of antibiotics and may affect the health of each and every one of us.

Research tells us that most Americans don't understand that antibiotics kill bacteria, not viruses. People go to their doctor and request antibiotics for themselves or a sick child, when it is not the appropriate course of treatment.

Most people lump viruses and bacteria together. Actually the two have little in common - viruses are more like robots. Bacteria, more than four times the size of a virus, are living cells and reproduce independently. Most bacteria are harmless to humans and many are, in fact, beneficial.

We're building a whole public health strategy based on these drugs, extrapolating a huge amount from a few small studies. How could you say they are efficacious? We don't know. Given that governments are spending millions, it's unconscionable that companies aren't giving more answers.

People use drugs, legal and illegal, because their lives are intolerably painful or dull. They hate their work and find no rest in their leisure. They are estranged from their families and their neighbors. It should tell us something that in healthy societies drug use is celebrative, convivial, and occasional, whereas among us it is lonely, shameful, and addictive. We need drugs, apparently, because we have lost each other.

When you start fooling around with drugs, you're hurting your creativity, you're hurting your health. Drugs are death, in one form or another. If they don't kill you, they kill your soul. And if your soul's dead, you've got nothing to offer, anyway.