Comment by micr0bi0l0gist

Author of the article here, thank you for pointing this out out! I added the following correction to my article: "Killing bacteria thus became a major preoccupation of modern life. Its most visible manifestation today might be taking antibiotics (first available in the 1940s): there were ~700 antibiotic prescriptions per 1000 people<4> in 2024 according to CDC data. A close second might be the dizzying array of disinfectant products found in U.S. grocery stores." I added this footnote as well: "<4> Author correction 7/28/26: I reported this initially as “7 in 10 people were prescribed antibiotics,” but a commenter on another site pointed out that the original report data likely reflects a smaller number of people getting repeat prescriptions, so I have reported the raw data from the CDC report instead."