A world in the very near future in which antibiotic resistance condemns people to death from a scratch is the latest dystopian vision of Dr Who writer/producer Russell T. Davies.
The BBC/HBO series Years and Years is ostensibly about the rise of a populist politician in the UK – played by Emma Thompson – but the underlying theme is about a how a family in the 2020s is affected by developments in science and technology for good and for bad
As well as the impact of worsening climate change, the family sees the implications of antibiotic resistance, as an estranged father dies after a minor accident involving a bicycle lead to sepsis from a scratch that is untreatable by any antibiotics.
And yet as some drugs fail, the rise of stem cell therapies enables a grandmother to have her age-related macular degeneration successfully treated. The only catch is that these expensive new therapies are no longer subsidised by government, so only those who can find $20,000 for the “NHS Plus” treatment can access the sight preserving treatment.
Another of Davies’ medical predictions is that CRISPR gene editing technology comes into wider use, with babies cured of hereditary conditions in the womb. But this leads one of the family members – who has spina bifida – to question where the tinkering will end whether this means ‘imperfect’ people like needs to be ‘fixed’.
Breath tests and fingerprint scans have become commonplace as a form of biometric identification, and synthetic healthy meat and modified, hangover-free alcohol have become acceptable consumer items.
Another recurring theme in Years and Years is the enthusiasm for sub-dermal implants of smartphone-like digital technology – the so-called ‘trans’ trend. But in some cases this is done illicitly in a form of offshore medical tourism by unscrupulous ‘cowboy’ medical teams operating on ships.