{"id":201375,"date":"2026-03-12T13:20:39","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T13:20:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/201375\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T13:20:39","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T13:20:39","slug":"superbugs-the-austin-chronicle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/201375\/","title":{"rendered":"Superbugs \u2022 The Austin Chronicle"},"content":{"rendered":"

Humans have not benefited from antibiotics for long in the grand scheme of things. Antibiotics were deployed for the first time in 1910<\/a>. In the century since, antibiotics have extended the average human lifespan by more than 20 years<\/a>. It is not hard to understand why: Anyone who has survived pneumonia, undergone a surgery, or taken pills to beat strep throat may owe their life to antibiotics.<\/p>\n

Now, we face the possibility of a post-antibiotic era. Superbugs like those breeding in Gaza<\/a> don\u2019t respond to drugs, and they certainly don\u2019t respect national borders.<\/p>\n

\u201cWar does more than just destroy buildings and kill people. It creates superbugs that will haunt us for the rest of our lives all across the world,\u201d said Antoine Abou Fayad, a microbiologist and speaker on South by Southwest\u2019s Conflict Contagion: The New AMR Threat<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So Abou Fayad has a warning for humanity, and data to back it up. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are multiplying at staggering rates in conflict zones<\/a>. Some are completely untreatable by existing antibiotics. He fears the result will be an existential turn in human health, back to an era where simple paper cuts are deadly, or require amputation.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre we willing to sacrifice that many souls, that many people, or not?\u201d Abou Fayad asked the Chronicle. \u201cAnd the thing with antimicrobial resistance is, regardless of where you live, nobody is safe.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since 2017, Abou Fayad has worked in a lab at the American University of Beirut, studying bacteria samples from Lebanon. He receives vials from regional hospitals, and bacteria growing on bullet casings. Of the bacteria he examines, some are easy to kill, others are resistant to a few drugs, and some are impossible to kill with any known antibiotics. When he started, these super-strong, totally resistant bugs used to pop up in samples about once per month. Now, he said he gets these samples once per day, and sometimes more often.<\/p>\n

The spike is astonishing, and it\u2019s not a temporary issue. Unlike viruses, which rely on animal cells to survive, bacteria can live and multiply on their own for a long time while hiding in the soil. Unless new antibiotics that can knock out these powerful new strains are rapidly developed, \u201cthis is going to be the norm,\u201d Abou Fayad said.<\/p>\n

Conflict zones create perfect breeding grounds<\/a> for superbugs, he explained. Cities under bombardment are full of open wounds, disrupted and dirty plumbing systems, and nearly expired antibiotics that are donated as aid. Infections from wounds abound. Then, when antibiotics are used in a frenzy before they are set to expire, they can do more harm than good, killing off only the weakest germs and leaving the strongest ones behind to become harder-to-beat strains.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s another big problem in war zones that the microbiologist says is too often overlooked: heavy metals. These metals, like copper and lead, naturally kill bacteria. When an area is full of metals \u2013 like those from bombshells \u2013 it leaches into the soil where bacteria lay. There, the metals kill off the weakest bacteria, leaving behind the stronger microbes.<\/p>\n

Microbiologists have linked<\/a> metal resistance and drug resistance for decades, but Abou Fayad\u2019s latest research shows exactly how this works, he said. His data describes the way that bacteria exposed to inordinate numbers of shell casings become impervious to drugs. Looking at samples from hospitals in South Lebanon before conflict, during, and after, Abou Fayad\u2019s team has found data that shows \u201cthe first actual genetic link\u201d that creates superbugs in war zones, he explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re actually going to be showing how the bombing, the shelling \u2013 all of that stuff \u2013 affects how bacteria become resistant to antibiotics, but it also affects how bacteria become more virulent and more dominant and more of a colonizer at the genetic level,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s no longer a theory.\u201d<\/p>\n

South by Southwest may seem an unlikely stage on which to unveil such grim scientific findings. The festival is better known for its celebration of new music, film, and tech. Yet, Abou Fayad will fly 14 hours from Lebanon to Texas to share his findings. Why not one of the world\u2019s myriad microbiology conferences? Why not one of the antibiotic resistance conferences in Switzerland or Washington, D.C.?<\/p>\n

Abou Fayad said his findings are grave, and they require an urgent response from people across industries and expertises.<\/p>\n

\u201cSouth by Southwest is not only for scientists,\u201d he said. \u201cThere are not that many platforms that allow you to share such data with everyone. South by Southwest is a window to actually share your data with people with various backgrounds, see what they think about it, see how we can work collectively towards a better place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Abou Fayad\u2019s long journey from the Middle East to Central Texas serves as a sort of proof, he said. His audience in Austin, and indeed the global audience, should be reminded that bacteria travel to every corner of the globe. War may be concentrated in the Middle East, but the superbugs it breeds could lead to deaths and amputations far from Lebanon or Palestine.<\/p>\n

With so many wounds and so much heavy metal in places like Gaza, Abou Fayad wants to urge governments and companies worldwide to do at least three things: First, maintain the effectiveness of antibiotics by limiting how often they\u2019re prescribed, so bacteria don\u2019t evolve resistance to them; second, create new antibiotics by increasing funding to discover and develop new drugs; and third, stop war.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe human race always came back from difficulties and problems with a better way,\u201d Abou Fayad said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This article appears in SXSW 2026 Festival Guide<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A note to readers:\u00a0Bold and uncensored,\u00a0The Austin Chronicle\u00a0has been Austin\u2019s independent news source for over 40 years, expressing the community\u2019s political and environmental concerns and supporting its active cultural scene. Now more than ever, we need your support to continue supplying Austin with independent, free press. If real news is important to you, please consider making a donation of $5, $10 or whatever you can afford, to help keep our journalism on stands. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Humans have not benefited from antibiotics for long in the grand scheme of things. Antibiotics were deployed for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":201376,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[79397,79398,132,134,133,79399,2969,2970,79338],"class_list":["post-201375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-antibiotic-resistant-bacteria","tag-antibiotics","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-superbugs","tag-sxsw","tag-sxsw-2026","tag-sxsw-innovation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}